Tip of My Iceberg

I wasn’t ready for her to visit. I didn’t want her to visit. She came anyway. Unannounced. Unwanted. Unyielding in her presence.

Snarky Dayle entered the building.

There are days when I find that my worst nightmare is happening. And it turns out to be me. Those are the days I’d love to have a vacation from myself. Just to get away. For a breather. To not have me to contend with every minute of every day.

I always show up. Not always in the way I want to be present.

Let me explain.

My two sisters are in town for a visit. A wonderful opportunity for sister bonding, family jokes, “remember when’s” and laughing together at the silly simple things that have been part of our DNA forever.

These gals know me. They know my blind spots, and they call me on them. They know the background of why I respond to some things the way I do. They get my junk.

And I get theirs.

In the midst of the sister time, my dear husband and I experienced a misunderstanding.

Not a knock-down, drag-out kind of disagreement.

A true, come-to-Jesus-and-repent-of-your-ways type of disagreement.

And I figured it wasn’t me needing to do the repenting.

I was angry with John for reasons that are really incidental. They weren’t life-challenging, lifestyle-altering, relationship-ending types of issues.

I hadn’t felt heard.

So Snarky Dayle engaged in the conversation.

I’ve made sarcasm a fine art form. As a kid, it was my way of holding my own when I didn’t feel I fit in. Or just felt left out. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve refined it, polished it, made sarcasm a tool in my belt of word usage.

My sisters were the first to get an earful.

Snarky Dayle ragged on John. I did nothing to stop her.

Snarky Dayle called him inappropriate names. I never once called her on it.

My sisters, however, aware of our current circumstances and of me in particular, were gracious to listen to my tirade.

And then they spoke truth into SD.

I watched her shrink from the reality of what she’d been doing.

I didn’t want to own any of it.

Their kindness and gentleness with me, affirmed by their love, did more to help me step back from my SD role than anything else. They didn’t just speak truth–they lived it.

“Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”   Ephesians 4:32

Jesus wants us to be forgiving because we’ve been forgiven for EVERYTHING we’ve ever done that doesn’t measure up to His standard of perfection.

Even my snarkiness.

I’d gotten angry, but anger wasn’t the problem. It was what I did with it. I’d camped on that anger. Wallowed in the misery it left inside me. Simmered in my own lack of forgiveness.

As long as I did that, there wasn’t room for reconciliation.

Jesus urges me to forgive. Because there’s nothing so bad that I’ve done that He hasn’t forgiven.

It helped hearing it from my sisters.

One more reason why I keep them around.