Speak With Love

Speak with Love

We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

Ephesians 4:15

The evening went just as Michelle had envisioned—even to the after-dinner stroll onto her patio to look at the city lights. After a long moment, Charles took a deep breath, then dropped to one knee.

Looking up, he said, “Michelle, you know I love you. When I’m on the road, I can’t wait to come home because of you. Will you marry me?”

Tears welled in her eyes at his words and the old-fashioned gesture of kneeling to propose. “Oh, Charles, yes,” she said. “Of course, I’ll marry you.”

He stood up to put his arms around her as he murmured, “Oh, thank you!”

She expected him to kiss her, but instead he stammered, “Since we’re gonna be married, please don’t fix curried chops again. I can’t stand curry.”

Michelle pulled back, stunned. Why had he let her continue to prepare a dish he hated? Then her mind raced. How would he face the challenges of marriage if he had let her believe a lie all these months?

Poor Michelle. Poor Charles. Was he really being dishonest? Or had he thought it kinder to spare her feelings only to get caught in a complication?

Charles’s misguided determination not to hurt Michelle’s feelings had created this tangled situation. Now, instead of delight at Charles’s marriage proposal, Michelle felt only dismay.

All of this could have been avoided if Charles had followed Ephesians 4:15, which says to speak the truth in love. The first time Michelle had prepared curried chops, Charles could have said, “This dish is well prepared and tasty, but curry isn’t my favorite spice.”

His honest response might have hurt her feelings momentarily but would have spared her deeper hurts.

One caution: The truth is to be spoken “in love.” Too often, meanness is cloaked as “truthfulness,” as when a woman named Margaret criticized her new daughter-in-law’s dinner and then added, “I’m telling you this for your own good.”

To Michelle’s credit, she didn’t hold Charles’s misjudgment against him. Instead, she let him know gently that she would rather hear the truth right away.

That’s a great way to start a great marriage. —SANDRA

Lord, help me to gently tell the truth and not go out of my way to correct the world around me. Remind me that not everyone needs to do things my way. Help me to remember that you sent the true Messiah more than two thousand years ago and I’m not a second one.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now—always.

—ALBERT SCHWEITZER (1875–1965), FRENCH THEOLOGIAN, PHILOSOPHER, MEDICAL MISSIONARY, AND MUSIC SCHOLAR