SM Letter #6 - typical scene
LESSONS LEARNED
She wants the dwarf crape myrtle tree pruned. “Just cut the ends off to make it smaller.”
I know that if you just knock the ends off all the branches then you’re going to encourage a million little flimsy branches to grow all over. I think you prune this by going back to the trunk and taking out the whole branch you don’t want. I spend 45 minutes doing it. It ends up dramatically thinned out, but it’s been “done right.”
“I hate it,” she says, emphatically. “I only asked you to take off the ends before company comes.” Turns and walks back inside. She’s pretty bugged by me.
I’ve spent 45 minutes in the sun, done it “right,” and she’s mad about it. Now I feel an emotional reaction inside, me, too.
Inside me: You can’t just chop off the ends. You don’t understand. Just because you want a certain thing doesn’t mean it can happen - it won’t look right with all the ends cut off. If you knew what I know you’d understand. I did what you want the way it had to be done.
Inside her: You didn’t listen to me. You wanted to do it your way. You didn’t care what I wanted. And now it doesn’t look like I want. We have friends coming over and I wanted it fixed and you’ve made it worse. I just wanted it better for now, not “right” by your definition. Do your "right" pruning in the Fall.
But - what was inside us didn’t really matter. What mattered was what we were going to do with what was inside us.
When the words come out while you’re emotional, you’re fueling a fire.
But if the words don’t come out, you can just stew and have a bitter attitude toward each other that erupts later.
But then again if the words DO come out to keep you from stewing, you can argue in a way that causes bitterness.
We all have a million scenes like this. Is this worth a fight? We’ve been down that road many times. How do you keep this from going in the ditch?
What have you done in this situation? 🙂 I'll share how it turned out for us in Part 2 in the next letter.
WORTH REPEATING
Same one from last week, definitely worth repeating: “Conflict is inevitable but combat is optional.” - Max Lucado
WORTH TRYING
A lot of times, success is “just don’t make it worse.”
Much of what’s happened over the years that gives us all a bad attitude toward each other is because we each made things worse that didn’t need to be.
We don’t have to fix everything or be superhuman or superspiritual - just don’t make it worse. Our reactions make it worse. Not making it worse is a great win.
WORTH REPLYING
The Bible says, ”A soft tongue will break a bone" - why would it say this? Just hit reply, I’d love to know what you think.
Gary