communication

Miss-communication is so easy to do. For example, the other day I was to pick up my wife from her way back from Oxford at the Love's Truck stop. She called me and said I am almost there. She was about 5 minutes away. I was about 6 minutes away. Those words almost there,  could mean 5 minutes or 15 minutes or even more depending on how far you are traveling. It's a word that is not exact. I drove into the Love's Truck stop past the front of the building thinking if she was there she'd see me and parked where I could watch the cars coming in. When she arrived just ahead of me, she went in to use the bathroom. I must have pulled in while she was in the bathroom. Where I parked there was a tour  bus between me and the building and you couldn't see me from the building. I waited and she waited just a few steps apart with a tour bus between us. After some time I called her, I thought you were almost here. She said I am here where are you. We were both a little upset. I guess if she'd said 5 minutes instead of almost there, maybe I would have looked inside the building, but I didn't. Simple clear communication saves some feelings. I thought about Matthew 5:33-37. One of those verses says let your conversation be Yea, yea; Nay, nay. Simple clear communication. I learned in my family of origin to use what a marriage counselor called halfway words. They always gave me an out. They were not precise, it was a strategy to protect myself as I was growing up in a dysfunctional home. When I became an adult, I didn't depart from it, I still used that strategy. One incident from my working years, when I hid a phone on the job that was in my work area. A lot of people would use that phone because it was in an out of sight area and had an outside line. I didn't like that, and I hid the phone. Someone reported to our lead that the phone was missing. The lead came to me and asked me if I knew what happened to the phone. I didn't want to say I hid it, I beat around the bush but would not answer directly. Finally my lead said just give me a yes or no answer, if you do that I know you won't lie to me. Yes I know where the phone is. OK and he walked away, I guess he had a pretty good idea what was happening and didn't say anymore. Simple communication is best, the person hearing us needs to understand the same as us. God bless, LVZ.