It’s been almost twenty years, but I thought about it again this morning. I was unloading the dishwasher.
You need to know that if I tell you this, you may not like or respect me as much. So I guess I’m okay with that. (I’m trying to take this dead bishop’s advice about embracing my weaknesses, faults, and imperfections.)
What I should also tell you: In college, I was a bit of a manipulator. And I had absolutely no idea.
My new husband, later, would tell me he wasn’t going to let me manipulate him, and I was righteously indignant. I was not a manipulator! (Hence, know that if you are a manipulator, you may not actually know it.)
One more thing you should know: The other night, we were talking with my daughter about her tendency, even at four years old, to manipulate.
Her: What’s ‘manipulate’?
My husband: It’s when you try to get someone to do something by making them feel a certain way. You’re trying to steer someone in a certain direction in less-than-honest way.
I told her how we ended up praying she would use her prodigious gifts at reading and influencing people to love people rather than control them. (God’s answered our prayers in sweeping ways.)
But enough lollygagging, already. I want to tell you what I regret.
The Incident
I believe the carful of us in college were returning from a concert. It was two guys that I had been attracted to awhile–good Christian guys–and another exuberant girl. I’d heard through the gossip chain that a girl (not one in the car) was being a little aggressive in how she pursued one of the guys in the car. So when the opening came in conversation, I used it–I thought–to create some distance between the guy and the aggressive girl. (In present days, I would title this part of the conversation “Janel throws unsuspecting victim under the bus”.) I asked the guys if they found the girls on campus too flirtatious for their taste.
Note to self: Pride cometh before the fall.
That Sunday, on our way back from church, one of the guys–to his credit–confronted me. The two of them had thought I was throwing the girl riding in the car with us under the bus.
I was appalled and humiliated, and denied that was my intention. (Heck, I wasn’t that rude! The bus smash-ee wasn’t even riding with us.)
Our friendship drifted apart after that. And I found another ride to church.
The Painful Lesson
I tell you this because I learned that day, and have been reminded since, that I can use my capacity to use my ability to see people and influence them…for utter evil.
A woman I spoke to yesterday became a Christian at age 25. She’s raised seven kids, and mentioned to me wisely that they are occasionally surprised–or maybe not surprised enough–at just how black their hearts are. “I knew exactly how bad I was,” she told me.
It can be soul-ripping to boomerang to those moments in our pasts when we were absolutely terrible.
But I tell you this because looking my regrets in the face has served me well in a few areas.
To ask forgiveness–from the person. From God. And then, accept it.
I remembered something awful I’d done in elementary school the other day. And I realized that at the time, I had no idea it was as bad as it was. It felt good to ask God for a clean heart when he reminded me what I’d done–to restore at least one relationship I damaged that day.
I don’t feel shackled to my past. I feel freed by the forgiveness I find when I admit I was (really, really) wrong. I can look back now, and see that like Joseph said to his brothers, I did intend evil; no buts about it. And God still used it for good (Genesis 50:20).
To realize our own capacity for evil–bringing humility, and helping us recognize our abject need.
I’ve written before that there’s definitely something of Sarah in me: “I did not laugh!” The nature of sin itself is to hide and cover and deny, deny, deny. But doesn’t that do worse than nothing? Doesn’t it isolate us and withhold us from change?
I like how Henry Cloud puts it in How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals about Personal Growth: “A key component of growth is grace—enough grace to open up and bring things into the light to be healed.”
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