Happy Tuesday, my friend!
I’m writing to you after a week off, a week of shopping until I was dropping and other assorted fun sisterly stuff. It was a lovely time, but I’m back to my old routine once again, ready to write to you!
Here’s my question for you today: How’s your filter? Does it need to be changed? No, not the ones we change in our A/C units, which reminds me, I’m due to change mine. I’m talking about your personal filter, the invisible one in front of your mouth. Some people are better about keeping their filter up-to-date, replacing the old when too many ‘maybe-I-shouldn’t-have-said-that’s come out. We seem to give little kids and older folks extra grace for having less of a filter. But for those of us not quite in either category, we’re held to a different standard.
I have to tell you about when a little girl I was babysitting told me exactly what she thought of me. Filter—schmilter!
I was a teenager and hadn’t babysat for this family before. I babysat a lot back then, as did my friends. It was the perfect job for a teenage girl.
This particular little girl, I’d guess she was about four years old, did not want to go to bed at her appointed bedtime. She pulled all the tricks in her “How To Fool a Babysitter” manual. She needed a drink of water, wanted one more bedtime story, had to go potty, was scared of the dark, and wanted her mom and dad, to name a few. I made numerous trips down the hall to her room to re-tuck her in after each urgent need had been met.
I suppose I eventually got tired enough of her constant requests and finally told her that was it. She was done, I was done, and she needed to stay in bed this time. She must have believed me because I could almost feel her defeat as she finally laid her head down on her pillow with a huff. As I flipped her light switch off and started down the hall to the family room, I heard her say with as much disdain as her four-year-old body could muster:
“I hope you poop in your pants!”
Whoa. She hoped I’d poop in my pants?? I suppose for a young child, that’s about the worst thing you can imagine and man, she wished it on me!
I remember being rather impressed with this statement. I would have never told a person of authority that I wished for them to be incontinent. And not just bladder incontinence. That would be one step “nicer.” But incontinence of the bowel? Now, that’s some serious talk right there. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to scold her and be mad or laugh out loud!
There was another time when my son, Sean, had something memorable to say. He was just shy of turning three years old. It was Christmas Eve, and Kevin had been working all day in the kitchen preparing his homemade ravioli and delicious sauce, his family’s traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We were probably eating later than usual that night, and the kids were starving. Maria, about five at the time, and Sean had been smelling the fabulous spaghetti sauce cooking for hours, and we were all drooling, waiting for Kevin to pronounce our dinner “done.”
At last, the moment had arrived, and we called the kids into the kitchen to sit at the table. Kevin displayed the ravioli in a large, grand dish in the middle of the table. I think Sean was expecting “regular spaghetti,” and when he saw the ravioli there instead, he was not having it! He was hungry, wanted spaghetti, not those weird-looking round things. He crossed his tiny arms across his chest, and announced with all the ire he could muster:
“I won’t even sit down!!”
He was madder than a hornet and not going to comply. I caught the whole thing on film as it was, after all, Christmas Eve, and it was a special night. We have laughed so hard all these years later at that little scene. Now, the phrase “I won’t even sit down” is used by our whole family whenever we don’t really want to comply with whatever is happening.
See? Kids can get away with all that. And we seem to lose our filters as we age as well. My mom, who never wanted to say anything to upset anyone, came up with some doozies in her last years.
It just so happens that in my Bible study this week, we are studying about the incredible power of our words. There are so many verses about the power of the tongue—it can do good, and it can do harm. It’s such a small part of the human body, but it can pack a punch! I love how in the book of James (chapter 3), he compares the tongue to the rudder of a huge ship. The rudder is small compared to the mighty ship, but it has the power to change the ship’s direction. And just this past Sunday, my pastor talked about James 1:19, which says, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” He brought to our attention that we’ve been given TWO ears but only ONE mouth.
I’m not a child anymore, and I’m not at the age where one typically starts to lose their filter, so in these years in between, I want to use my words to build others up, not tear them down. I’m not saying that I’ve got this down. I’m just saying I hope to expel more positive words than negative ones during any given day. There’s a lot of negativity out there. What do you say we try to cancel some of that out with some positive words? You just might make someone’s day.
Oh, and by the way, I hope you don’t poop in your pants this week. 😉
Written with love – – Patti XOXO
“Like apples of gold in settings of silver
is a word spoken at the right time.”
Proverbs 25:11