I am often the one who says the thing that people are thinking but haven't said yet.
It can be funny. It can be jarring. Either way, it tends to have an impact; maybe it’s in my intensity, my voice, my tone – or a combination. Then, I spend the rest of the night reasoning through whether it should have been in the first place, could I have said it better, differently, nicer, softer…and on and on it goes.
Almost every night. Almost every conversation. Turning it over, building a loop, wondering why I said it, and what the room thought when I did.
And then one evening I realised something quietly obvious: no one else is thinking about it nearly as much as I am. Everyone else is in their own bed, turning over their own conversations, running their own loops. We are all, most of us, doing this to ourselves in the dark.
Psalm 37 verses 23 and 24 stopped me recently.
"The Lord directs the steps of the godly.
He delights in every detail of their lives.
Though they stumble, they will never fall —
for the Lord holds them
by the hand."
He delights in every detail.
Not the edited version of me. Not the version that measured her words more carefully before speaking. The actual me — the one who names the thing in the room that everyone else is quietly relieved someone finally named.
He made that. He delights in that.
He delights in my audacity to challenge the elephant in the room, in the insight I seem to have, the foresight that seem clear to me, but not to others.
He delights in the particular way I am wired to notice what others would rather leave unnoticed.
I beat myself up for not fitting neatly in many spaces, but the verse does not say He tolerates every detail of our lives. It says He delights.
And even when I get it wrong — and sometimes I do — it says though they stumble, they will never fall. Because He is holding my hand.
Not directing or guiding me from a distance. Holding my hand – He is close enough to take hold of my hand.
These days, I think about it for a shorter amount of time, take it as an opportunity for reflection, and then I leave it alone.
leave it alone Now.
I pick myself up, dust myself off, apologize when needed, take ownership and accountability, but I don't stay there too long. I no longer ruminate.
Maybe the night-time loop doesn't need to be solved. Perhaps it just needs a hand to hold it and that’s the hand that holds mine.
