A Lighthearted Look at Communicating with Those We Love
June Yates-Boykin
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Just as I complete the extreme inhalation of a loud, frantic gasp, my husband slams on the brakes.
“What?” His startled tone and the look of terror on his face as he scans our surroundings let me know I’ve done it again. “What?” he repeats, “What is it?”
Were it not for the fact that my seatbelt has me in the choker hold, I would have answered him the first time. But now I’m afraid. He is going to kill me.
“Nothing. I’m sorry,” I muster up the courage to respond.
“Well, it better be something. I thought we were about to be blind-sided or run over somebody. You nearly scared me to death! Now what is it?” He is growing very impatient. I can tell by his “I’m-not-yelling” yell.
“I forgot to take the clothes out of the dryer.”
Several squealing tires, aggravated gestures, and frustrated looks later, I finally learned not to gasp or cry out, “Oh, my God!” unless something is really wrong. Now I simply give myself an I-could-have-had-a-V8 slap on the forehead and scold myself, “Oh, June, no you didn’t”. The highways are a safer place.
And since 9-1-1 blocked our number because of too many calls that started out with, “I don’t know what’s wrong, but it must be serious. She’s screaming hysterically,” but ended with, “Never mind, she found $10 in the laundry,” I had to learn a better way to share exciting news. I think I’ve worked that one out quite well.
When something wonderful happens, I instead of sounding like there’s an intruder, or even worse – a snake in the house, my family taught me to let out a high-pitched “whoo-hoo.” If it’s really, really big news, I throw on an extra syllable, “whoo-hoo-hoo” and go hopping about the house because that’s what tiggers do.
My husband has done his share as well. He now understands that when I’m quiet – that’s when he should be concerned. The quieter I am, the more concerned he should be, if for no other reason than the fact that pretty soon the floodgates are going to open. Whatever emotions I’m controlling at that moment are going to come spewing out of me worse than God ridding himself of the lukewarm.
He has also accepted the fact that when on the road I say, “Honey, I think I need to stop soon,” what I really mean is, “Turn on the blue lights and sirens and get me to a bathroom fast! And make sure it’s a clean one.”
You see, it’s give and take, the struggle to better relate to one another. Open and understandable communication is vital to every relationship. Everyone in the relationship should agree to work on it together.
We tend to think that everyone speaks like we do, expresses themselves like we do, and uses the same terminology we do. We expect people to know what we mean regardless of what we say. We are often insulted when misunderstood without thought of how many times we misread others. We can even become critical if others don’t express themselves in worship the way we do.
2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. Ephesians 4:2,3 NLT
Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. Colossians 4:6 NKJV So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up. Romans 14:19 NLT
Learning to truly communicate with another, even God, on any level deeper than casual small talk requires getting to know that person. We must listen to them, watch them, and share with them. In so doing we learn what their disappointments sound like, and their elation. We see the doubts and understand the joy. We grasp the love, even when not directly spoken.
We talk often about the need for unity in the body of Christ. One of the major barriers of that unity is the inability to communicate with each other as we should. It takes effort to really get to know each other, to learn one another’s differences in expression and seek to understand one another better. It takes effort to change our own habits that lend themselves to misunderstanding by others. Every endeavor is worth it.
You might hear me say I’ve been doing something 100 years or that I’ve told you something a gazillion times, or even that sometimes I feel like it’s my fault people are starving in other parts of the world. None of these things are literally true. Yet, I’m not lying. I’m expressing myself. I’m really not 100 years old. I have no idea how much a gazillion is, so I’m sure I can’t count that high. And while I do struggle with undue guilt about things, thinking that I caused hunger around the world isn’t one of them. I simply talk big because I feel big.
My husband not so much. He is also a passionate person, but he understates things. Remember how God created this amazing heavens and earth and every creature herein, including us, then looked calmly down and said, “It is good,”? The understatement of all understatements as far as I’m concerned. That would be my husband.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Proverbs 25:11
I, on the other hand, would have shouted out, “Wow! Do you see that?!? Do you see what I’ve created?!? Look everybody! Look!” I would have been whoo-hoo-hooing at the top of my lungs as I hopped around the throne room with such magnitude stars would have been thrown to the earth and planets knocked out of place.
It’s not because either of us are communicating incorrectly, we’re simply communicating differently. We’ve grown close enough to each other that we understand those differences. We’ve come to anticipate, appreciate, and even enjoy them. More important, we can now respond properly. We also both work on the areas the other is prone to misunderstand. Differences that once caused frustration now often bring laughter. Can we strive for the same throughout the body of Christ? I pray so.
It won’t happen overnight. Getting to know and understand one another is a process. For instance, my adult sons still aren’t certain at times whether this is a smile on my face or a warning.
©2023
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