Words You Wish You Could Take Back

The morning of February 19th had started out very quietly.   I was taking it easy after a hectic day before.

At 12:56 PM, I got an e-mail from my pastor.   Earlier in the week I had used something that happened at our church as a springboard for a blog post.   He was not pleased.   But he made it clear it wasn’t just displeasure with what I’d written, he wasn’t pleased with me either.   If a pastor could write a parishioner a letter of divorce, I suddenly knew what one would look like.

By 3:05 PM, I was calm and composed enough to draft a reply.   I was engaging ideas, not debating his leadership, and decided to defend the ideology of blogging in general, and lament that on a personal level, my friendship with this man was obviously fading.

By 4:25, he had seen my reply and was already in damage control mode.   But it was too late.   The words in the first e-mail had to have come from somewhere, and I knew that my time at that church was over.    It was sad really, because I had been stepping up my commitment to that particular assembly over the ten weeks that preceded this unexpected development.

I counted them.   There were ten words in his first e-mail to me that were extremely negative.   But it was the tenth one I couldn’t forget.    And no matter how much I wanted to pick up the phone and say, “Okay, I got your second e-mail; let’s move forward…” I couldn’t get past that one word.   And I can’t to this day.

Pastors often meet with me and unburden themselves of situations in their congregational life that leave them worn out.   It’s a vocation that leaves people very vulnerable, and they often speak of that “one person” who exhausts all their human resources.   I just never considered the possibility that any pastor, in any church I ever attended, would consider me that “one person.”    I mean, for one thing, I think you have to take up a lot of a pastor’s time — in the office or on the telephone — to even qualify.

And I don’t think he meant it fully.   I think that either he wrote it in haste; had some other situation that was already eating away at him that day; or someone was running some third party interference.

But that one word simply cut too deeply. I knew we were done.   I miss some of the people there.   But I don’t have the energy to try to make another start.     Too bad, really.

So today’s question is:   What words have you spoken or written that you wish you could take back?

And its reciprocal question:  What words that others have spoken have you found it hard to forgive and forget; or in what situations were you successful at forgiving and forgetting?

Forgetting is often considered a human failing; but with God, it’s a Divine attribute.   And yes, I know what you’re thinking…