Sound familiar? Have you ever been in the position of knowing precisely what you’d say – but the time has passed, you’ve not said that stunning remark at the appropriate moment. If only… Well, the time has passed and you can’t go running after whoever and make your comment so what do you do? No one can have a grab bag of comments that they can pull out at the time of a ‘necessary'(?) retort. But, just maybe… this is not such a bad thing after all.
Was your cutting comment or stunning remark something that you’d be sorry that you said later? Was it really appropriate? Would it have accomplished anything that you’d be proud of later or would cause the other person to rethink their initial comment? I remember a moment in the old movie, “You’ve Got Mail” in which the female lead did finally make the comment she’d always wanted to say in response. The result, she deeply hurt the other person and she was aware of this reaction. Sadly, the target wasn’t deserving of the piercing. Now what?
I’ve discovered that many times my barb would have caused hurt or sadness in the target but they didn’t even know that they had (first) hurt me – it really wasn’t deliberate. Actually, I’m not sure that ‘deserving’ has anything to do with anything. Behavior should represent the person and bad behavior, no matter if it feels like it’s justified, should never be a response. It really isn’t justified if it isn’t who you want you to be.
If your nature is not to say those things that later you think you’d like to have said… then consider yourself blessed. For one thing, you don’t need to seek forgiveness from the Lord and the person if you never say ‘it’. For another thing, to repeat me, if it isn’t the essential you then the response is totally out of character. Do you want to be a person that acts and speaks totally out of character? If you do, then you can become that type. Not sure it’s worth the time and energy to become one who always has a rejoinder. Might not really be as much ‘fun’ as you think.
Never be a ‘wish I’d said that’ person. Remember the scriptural comment that we should let our yes be yes and our no, no (Matthew 5:37). Our essential ‘us’ should be our focus and let other’s bad behavior, purposeful or not, receive the ignoring it deserves. Besides… do you really gain anything from saying a hurtful thing in a timely manner?
