Ctrl+Z

"Every decision I make is a choice between a grievance and a miracle"  Helen Schucman

The undo button.  Gotta love it.  I probably use this single feature on my computer more than any other.  More than the Save function, more than the Print command, and more than the super cool duo of Cut and Copy.  The thing is, I make mistakes all the time when I'm typing, and one of the most common mistakes I make is accidentally erasing whole chunks of a paragraph at once.  I only mean to delete a partial sentence, but somehow the entire selection gets highlighted and in my typing frenzy, poof, its gone.  The Undo button comes in like a lifeguard at the beach, rescuing all that is important to me as I write.

I got to thinking about how I wished my life came with an Undo button.  Make a mistake, say something mean, act inconsistently with your values?  No worries, just hit "Undo".

This week, I said some things to a friend that, though not terrible, certainly weren't said in love.  I brought impatience and irritation to the conversation, instead of compassion and love.  She didn't seem to notice, but she was busy and hurrying to her next task, and it was Sunday and it was at church of all places.  I wished it were possible to eat those words, but the minute you put something out there, you can never take it back or turn back time like it never happened.  Because it did happen.

Sometimes its easy to let the little things like this slip by us, unnoticed and unattended to, but they usually end up creating a giant snowball as new hurts are added to the mix, and then its an altogether different story.  This exchange continued to roll around in my mind and towards the end of the evening while cleaning up the kitchen, I remembered some great wisdom that tells us to "never let the sun go down on your anger" (Ephesians 4:26).  I found her number, reached her on the phone and apologized.  It was done - the world set right - all in five minutes or less.  She graciously accepted my words, but either had no idea anything had even happened, or was letting her Southern show by telling me she didn't understand why I felt the need to apologize.  God bless this woman, she truly is a saint.

And while I realize that not every hurt is this easy to right, it is true that we should work to right every wrong - continually working things out with each other so that bitterness is not allowed to take root in our lives and our relationships.  In recognizing my wrong action towards her, I was able to make a choice to stop the action.  Then and only could I have the platform to set it straight between myself and my friend.  And it was there, in the seeking forgiveness and the act of forgiving, that I caught a glimpse of God's grace and forgiveness.