I Apologize Before They Sit Down

You do it before they have taken their coat off.

Sorry about the state of it. Sorry, I have not had a chance. Sorry, it is a bit of a mess. Sorry about the couch. Sorry, ignore all that.

It comes out fast, and it comes out light, and it is said in the tone of a joke so that it does not sound like what it is.

And here is what I want to point out at the start, because it is the whole subject.

Nobody had said anything. Nobody had looked at anything. Your friend was three feet inside the door with her arm still in one sleeve, and the first piece of information she received about your home came from you, and it was negative.

That is not a small thing to have happen every time somebody comes in.

I want to be careful, because I know exactly where the apology comes from and it is not vanity. It is a way of getting there first. If you say it, then nobody else has to think it, and you have controlled the moment, and nothing can be sprung on you.

It works. That is why it has lasted eleven years.

What it also does is spend the first thirty seconds of every visit telling somebody who likes you that where you live is a disappointment, and then asking her to disagree with you, which she now has to do, politely, while holding a coat.

Tonight we are going to build one sentence to say instead. And to have one, we need something in that room to say it about.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue

There is a proverb about the mouth that is usually preached at people who are being unkind to others, and it applies just as directly to what a woman says about her own house.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. (Proverbs 18:21, King James Version)

Death and life. Those are large words for a sentence said in a hallway, and the proverb does not offer a smaller category.

You are holding real power in what you say about your own house, and a sentence said lightly at a door has never once been weightless. Proverbs 18:21 puts death and life inside the power of the tongue, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says so about eleven years of saying sorry in a hallway.

Now look at the second half, because that is the part that describes the machinery.

They that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Whatever a person keeps saying, they end up eating. The words come back around and are consumed by the one who said them.

Which means the sorry about the state of it is not evaporating after it is said. It goes somewhere. Eleven years of it goes somewhere, and the somewhere is you, and it is being eaten by the woman who lives in that house.

You have been eating the fruit of one sentence for eleven years, and a light remark at a door has never once been too small to be swallowed. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a woman what her own mouth has been feeding her, and it is written in Proverbs 18:21 that the one who loves a word eats its fruit.

What the visitor actually receives

Let me put this from the other side of the door for a moment, because I think it is worth seeing.

Your friend comes over. She is glad to be there. She has been looking forward to it since Tuesday and she has not thought about your couch once in her life.

She comes in, and in the first ten seconds she is handed a small problem. Her friend has just told her that the place is a disappointment. Now she has to respond, and there are only two available responses and both of them are awkward.

You are able to hand somebody an easy welcome instead of a small problem, and a doorway has never once needed a warning attached to it. Proverbs 18:21 puts life inside the power of the tongue, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in the first ten seconds of an ordinary visit.

She can disagree, which means telling you your own perception of your own home is wrong, in a hallway, while holding her coat. Or she can let it pass, which means agreeing by silence.

She did not want either of those. She wanted to come in and sit down and talk to you.

You are somebody a friend came to see, and a front room has never once been what she got in the car for. The Holy Spirit is the one who reminds a woman why the doorbell went, and Proverbs 18:21 puts the whole weight of the moment into what gets said rather than into what is standing in the room.

You are able to hand a friend an easier first thirty seconds, and a person coming into a house has never once needed a disclaimer to enjoy the visit. The Holy Spirit is the one who frees a woman's mouth at her own front door, and Proverbs 18:21 puts life as well as death inside the power of what gets said.

And here is the other cost, and it is on the room itself.

Every apology re-files that room. It goes into the category of things being managed rather than things being lived in. And a room that has been apologized for eleven hundred times becomes a room its owner cannot see straight, because she has described it out loud as a disappointment more often than she has ever looked at it in peace.

You are able to change what a room is called out loud, and eleven years of one description has never once been the truth about a house. The Spirit of God is the one who gives a person back a plain view of where she lives, and it is written in Proverbs 18:21 that the tongue carries life in it too.

And this, plainly, in these words. That house is not a report on you. Not on your standard, not on your effort, not on the life you have made in it. A room a woman apologizes for is not a verdict on the woman, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way while she is standing in her own hallway.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from that front room, and the state of a house has never once been a statement about who lives in it. Proverbs 18:21 puts the power in the tongue in Proverbs 18, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is standing at the door with you.

Three things, and one sentence

So here is the assignment, and it has a tonight half and a next-time half.

Put three things you like on one surface together on purpose tonight, and the next time somebody comes in, say one true sentence about one of them instead of apologizing.

Tonight, three things you actually like. Not three things that go together, and not three things that are impressive. Three that you like. They can be small and they can be odd and nobody else has to understand them.

On one surface, arranged, spaced, on purpose.

You are putting three things you like into your own line of sight, and a small arrangement has never once been beneath the size of a change worth making. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when a woman chooses something in her own house, and Proverbs 18:21 places life inside the power of what gets said about it.

Then the next time somebody comes in, the sentence.

One true sentence about one of the three. That came from my grandmother's kitchen. I found that at the back of a cupboard last month. My son made that when he was nine.

It does not have to be interesting. It has to be true, and it has to be about something in the room, and it has to be first.

Because the apology is a reflex, and a reflex is not argued down. It is displaced. Something else has to occupy the first thirty seconds, and that is all this is.

You are putting a true sentence where an apology has been living, and one plain remark about a bowl has never once been a smaller welcome than an excuse. The Spirit of God is the one present in the first thirty seconds at a door, and it is written in Proverbs 18:21 that death and life are both in the power of the tongue.