« Movie Review: Strange Brew | Main | Those Who Oppose You »
A few kind words
By Julie | October 4, 2007
The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood,
but the speech of the upright rescues them.
Proverbs 12:6
We all make mistakes. I’ve made a lot more than I’d like to confess to. But the more I read the Bible, the more the principles within it keep me from making some, every now and then. I still make others. But every now and then, when I’m about ready to do something stupid, that I shouldn’t do in the first place, a verse, or thought, will stick out in my head and help me do things the right way.
I’ve been cleaning stuff out of closets, and off shelves we no longer use. I’m tired of it just taking up space. As I was sorting, I found many nice things in really good condition that we’ve grown out of. I was going to donate everything to the Goodwill. But, for some reason I decided to hold onto the nicer things and try selling them on eBay. I have a few friends who are regular eBayers, so they helped me. I did a little reading, took some pictures, and placed some auctions. I had five auctions sell. Wow. I was very impressed because I really didn’t know what I was doing, or what to expect. I sent off my invoices like you’re supposed too, following eBay’s procedures.
The next day I received an email from one of my ‘buyers’ explaining she had bid on two similar dresses. She won her bid for the other one and would not need mine. But that’s not how eBay works! It is not a normal store that you can just put the items back if you change your mind. When people place an auction they place it for a limited amount of time, often a week. When the auction is over, you are charged a fee based on the auction amount, or it may not sell at all, and then the item no longer appears on eBay. So, if you bid on an item, it is with the understanding you want it, and will pay for it when winning the auction.
After first reading her email I thought, What?! That’s not fair. I don’t know how to deal with this. I can’t believe this happened! I started to feel myself mope around and was on the verge of complaining.
Then I remembered a speaker I heard last year, Cherie Adams. (She also has one of the best singing voices I have ever heard.) She mentioned how often the Bible talks about the power of the tongue. In fact, Bible Gateway finds the word “tongue” 137 times in the NIV Bible. In her speech, Cherie Adams said she was reading about the power of the tongue. She realized one of the reasons it’s so powerful is because what comes out of mouths is heard by our ears. What is heard by our ears goes into our brains and is remembered.
So, if we are saying positive things, we will probably see the positives, even in difficult circumstances. But if we mope around and complain about how bad the world is, even if we are in the best phase of our life, we’ve told ourselves it’s a prison sentence, so we live like it.
This all came back to me before I started complaining about my eBay experience. I called my friend, the regular eBayer, for advice. Then I sent out an email to the bidder who declined my bid, and tried to be a nice as I could be, while still being direct. I gave her a little tip I had learned to help her keep track of her auctions. I left her with a few options and asked her to choose what she wanted to do.
And guess what happened? I got the nicest email back, from a woman who apologized, and explained she really didn’t understand how eBay worked. She thanked me for explaining, and said she’d pay my fees for the auction. Then, she even thanked me for the tip. Tonight I discovered she left me positive feedback for the eBay community to see, saying how understanding I had been.
If I did not have the Bible in my life, I may have gotten angry and sent some nasty message, angering a very nice woman who simply did not understand.
I don’t know if I’d call myself righteous, as Proverbs says, I think I’m too much of a screw-up. But, the words in the Bible have rescued me many times, and made me act in righteous ways. Plus they gives me an extra incentive: a few kind words, saying I’m sorry when I mess up, and sometimes when I don’t, has put some really special people in my life, and made what could’ve been a bad experience, a good one.
Meanwhile, the people who lie in wait for blood wallow in their own bitterness, and make their paradise a prison. I’d rather say a few kind words to try and diffuse the situation.
Topics: Encouragement | No Comments »
