For me, it's super easy to give my time, acts of service, help, and money. It's so easy for me to give those that I sometimes tend to over give in most of those areas. Second chances are harder, but still not something I truly struggle with.
So that leaves apologies as the most difficult for me. I realized this for the first time on Sunday and as someone who grew up apologizing so much (always saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for saying I'm sorry...)that she often got in trouble for it- this realization surprised the heck out of me.
The realization came to me while sitting in church Sunday morning. Sunday was a slow and easy morning and Honey and I sat ready for church watching TV waiting until it was time to leave. Neither of us was paying much attention to the time and all of a sudden I glanced at the clock and realized we needed to leave immediately or we were going to be late.
And y'all I HATE HATE HATE to be late.
Seriously.
I'd rather NOT go somewhere at all than be late. So we jumped into the car and headed to church.
And I was a bit stressed. (Okay, maybe more than a bit stressed).
Adding to my stress of being late as we drove was the fact that there was a race going on (which my ROCKSTAR friends Wendy and Jamee ran in) and that meant an added detour and some extra traffic.
As we sat at a light waiting with tons of other cars to turn I grew more and more distressed.
And I kept making little comments about the fact that we were going to be late.
As if making my little comments would make us go faster and get there sooner. (Duh).
As we inched towards church, pulled into the parking lot, and started towards our parking space, I had my seat belt off, my purse in one hand and my bible in the other. I was READY to get out and get into church before it started.
Now anyone who knows my husband knows that he does NOT NOT NOT hurry.
EVER.
Seriously the man is as slow as I am speedy and I usually LOVE that about him because it causes me to slow down- which I so often need to do.
Well let's just say that Sunday I did NOT love his slowness.
To be honest it irritated the heck out of me.
Seeing that we were in a hurry I would have expected him to turn in the parking lot and quickly park. But no, he pulled in slowly, drove carefully around to where we normally park, and then proceeded to BACK into the parking space. (Dory and I had a laugh about this when she was here because Mr. Lucky does the same thing- it must be a guy thing because I would NEVER back into a space. NEVER.)
So he slowly backed into the space. He barely had time to put the car in park before I was out and walking quickly towards the building. I glanced over my shoulder to see he was still at the car, taking his time. I stopped and waited- giving him a "Would you PLEASE hurry up!" look- until he caught up. He caught up, we started walking (me fast, him not so fast) and I again found myself way ahead of him and waiting impatiently.
At this point I said something ugly to him that I should not have.
It was rude. And totally unnecessary. (What I said doesn't matter, trust me when I say it was ugly).
I knew the second the words were out of my mouth I should NOT have said it.
And yet standing there, knowing it should never have been said, knowing I was about to enter church to worship God, knowing I was being ridiculous, I did the unthinkable.
I said it again.
As if once was not bad enough, I said something ugly and hurtful to my husband not once but twice. Standing in the parking lot at church. At church.
Of course then I plastered a smile on my face to greet all those I encountered as we quickly walked in and found our seats.
Church began quickly and we started singing.
Singing about God's love and His mercy and His grace.
And I got a huge lump in my throat. I almost couldn't sing because I felt so badly about what I had said. So I quickly prayed and asked God to forgive me for being so ugly. And I promised God that I wouldn't do it again- that I wouldn't say something that I knew would intentionally hurt my husbands feelings.
And yet, even after praying, the lump was still there.
I started thinking...........
Maybe I need to do something extra nice for Honey today, something to show him how much I love him and to make up for being so catty.
And it was almost as if someone was standing right beside me saying ...............
That's not what you need to do. You just need to apologize.
As we sat down I tried to shake that thought out of my head- telling myself that it was no big deal and that he knew I didn't mean it and it really was no big deal and as long as I didn't do it again it was okay and.....blah blah blah blah blah (insert more ridiculous justification here)blah blah blah blah blah.
I kept trying to pay attention and focus on the sermon but i just kept hearing in my head.........
You need to apologize.
And so finally I stopped, wrote a little note to my sweet husband telling him how sorry I was and I asked him to forgive me for saying something so rude and ugly.
Of course, being his sweet self he said it was no big deal, that of course he forgave me and hugged me close and kissed me on the head.
And I felt so much better.......... like a load of bricks jumped off of my shoulders.
I spent much of Sunday afternoon and the days since then wondering why I was so hesitant to apologize- when I knew I was wrong, when I knew I was out of line, when I knew it was the right thing to do, when I knew that it was what my husband deserved, when I knew it was what God called me to do..........
Why didn't I just do it?
