Takebacks

Two weeks and two days. That’s how little time is left in my son’s summer. Where did it go? I know, it’s a cliché, but life just goes so fast the older you get. Sometimes you just wish for a takeback. 

We haven’t done a vacation because we’ve been too busy with renting our old house, unpacking the new one, selling my mother’s house, and there’ve been so many extra expenses. But we’re going to do one weekend break away, to a nearby city, to see some sights.

In the meantime, we went school supply shopping yesterday and bought a few extra items for our local program to help underprivileged kids get supplies for school. I bought paper and erasers, the two ends of the spectrum. You’ve got to have paper to write on and then sometimes you need to erase what you’ve written.

Ever want to do that? Erase something you’ve done or said? I have and just recently. My husband’s been out of town the last couple of weeks and one day my son was just getting on my nerves. We’ve had the whole summer together, just he and I because my job ended near the end of school, too. It’s been a pretty quiet summer because as I’ve said, we haven’t gone anywhere.

My son has ADHD and he’s off his medication for the summer. That means he’s a little more raucous than usual and for some reason, by the end of the day that day, I had had enough. He’d been teasing the cat, and I’d told him to stop a few times already. Finally, I said something I shouldn’t have.

It was almost his bedtime when it happened so after a while he went off to bed and I went to my room to work on homework. Only, I couldn’t think. Except about what I’d said. I prayed to God to forgive me but I still couldn’t settle down. Finally, I went in and knocked on my son’s door. He wasn’t asleep yet. I asked him if he had heard what I said. He had. I had hoped I’d kept it under my breath enough for him to miss it.

I wanted a takeback. He granted me one.

I told him I was sorry and I didn’t mean it. I asked him to forgive me. He said he did, but he also said that it was always late in the day when I did things like that. That hit me like a ton of bricks because it meant he remembered other times when I’d asked his forgiveness for something.

You see, there aren’t really any takebacks.

Even though he forgave me, what I’d said would always be there. I know today’s blog is not so much about volunteering and charity, but it’s what’s on my mind.

We can’t really take back anything so we need to do the right thing, the first time and every time, as much as we can. I’m certainly not able to do it all the time, as I’ve explained, but I’ve got to do better.

Please help me, God, not just to have a helping heart, but to show self-control. It’s supposed to be a fruit of the spirit, so I ask the Holy Spirit to guide me through those little times when it’s easy to go off the handle. Instead, hold me back, breathe into me so I don’t do something I shouldn’t. Thank you, Lord.