The Exploder Who Shames Herself

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true,

whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything

is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.

(Philippians 4:8)

The first line of the email was “Shame on you.”

Lovely.

It was from a fellow middle school parent who was deeply offended that her daughter hadn’t been invited to my daughter’s birthday party. Take note of two words in that last sentence that strike fear deep within the hearts of many, many mothers: middle school. Need I say more? Glory be.

Never mind that Hope had been having problems with this girl hurting her feelings all year. Never mind we’d decided to invite only the girls in her homeroom class, of which this girl was not part. And never mind we wished we could invite this girl, but the fear of her repeating the hurt she’d caused in school sent Hope into a crying fit.

So we didn’t invite her. I’m not saying this was the right decision. But honestly, it wasn’t done out of spite at all. We’d done so many things to reach out and extend love to this girl, and Hope was just completely worn out from continually getting nothing but hurt back. It was a tough decision and one I didn’t make lightly.

But, still, I got this email. Not only did I get the shame-on-you email, but this other mom was clear about her plans to have Hope called into the principal’s office and reminded to be kind to her daughter.

I don’t know what the official definition of a twit is. Nor am I completely sure twit is a real word. However, when you feel all twisted up, with irritation sprinkled on top, twit seems fitting.

So there I was in a twit right at the start of a new day.

Typically, I am a middle school parent who stays out of the drama. And I readily admit when my kids need to be corrected and redirected. But on this day I could envision myself zinging the person who hurt me with the perfect comeback. I mentally weighed all the many reasons I was perfectly justified in leveling the scales of hurt.

She dumped a bucket of hurt on me. The scale tipped heavy on my side. Therefore, I should dump a bucket of hurt on her. Then the scales would be even and my twit would dissipate in this balance of hurt equality. But something in my spirit didn’t feel any better after I mentally walked through this leveling of the scales.

I felt heavy.

In this instance, I was about to be an exploder who would later feel shame for not acting more like someone who really loves Jesus and follows Him. Being able to identify my tendency helped me see in advance the downside of the reaction I was about to have. I imagined myself feeling the shame of exploding on this woman and I didn’t like how it felt. I didn’t want shame to be my reality.

I’ll sometimes say to myself, “Sip the shame so you won’t have to guzzle the regret.” In other words, taste a little bit of the shame of what will be if you let it all rip before you find yourself drowning in gallons of unwanted regret.

Sipping the shame of what would be if I let my raw emotions have their way helped me not to explode. And that’s good. But I still had some processing to do to get the hurtful feelings to dissipate. The last thing we want to do is trade our unhealthy exploding for unhealthy stuffing. Remember, the balance between the two is soul integrity where our honesty is godly.