Imaginary Conversations

We've all had them. 

Sometimes we’re practicing for a presentation or a speech and trying to prepare for any questions that come up. 

Sometimes we’re tackling a knotty problem and we ‘talk’ it over with someone we can no longer actually talk to.  We know how they would respond and that influences the outcome of the conversation and how we handle the problem.

Sometimes we’re trying to marshal our thoughts for an argument so we can drill our point home.  This conversation is a bit trickier.  Since we believe we know the other person well enough to know exactly what they're going to say, the argument ensues.  This argument can get heated enough to make us mad and keep us mad (come on, admit it) right up to the moment we have the real conversation.  We jump the person right away, they get defensive and nothing is solved.  Or worse, they say something totally off track from our imaginary argument and blow our reasoning right out of the water—which just makes us madder.  We walk away fuming and they walk away totally confused about what just happened.

The Holy Spirit has been working with me concerning these imaginary arguments to stop them before they start.  Why?  Well…because they’re imaginary and very damaging.  We can’t predict how the real conversation will go. Too much of the time (even if it is someone we are very close to), we don’t really know what is going on in their heads at that moment.  We only see it from our perspective.  Sometimes (more often than we’d like to admit), we expect them to say things we would say if we were in their shoes.  Or, we expect them to act like someone from our past.

It has been a very interesting two weeks.  Between trying to speak life (blog from two weeks ago) and this argument thing, I am having to back up and change my words—a lot.  Two Sundays ago, I told the guys in the sound booth at church that I was mouthy (already working on the speak life thing) so I was going to keep my mouth shut (only way to avoid mouthy-ness altogether).  Now this! 

So if I’m very quiet the next time you see me, you’ll know why.