Verbal Typos

We all have those moments where we wish our mouth had a reverse switch to quickly inhale back the words that have escaped through our lips.

Those words are sometimes passionate words of anger leading to regret and sometimes its purely a jumbled embarrassing mess, from being stressed/overtired etc. Then of course comes the fun when you are speaking in a language that is not your native tongue and you accidentally misuse and mistake one word for another, leading to much hilarity, confusion and embarrassment.

When I was in Albania I had many verbal typo moments, when I would misuse a word, or get a letter wrong in a word, changing its whole meaning. It was easy to do, far to easy, especially as some words are only one letter apart.... for example the word for son is  "djale" but the word for devil is "djall" and in my English ears they sound the same... but they aren't....far from it. ?ou only have to call someone's child a cute devil to feel the ramifications of mixing up the words by lengthening the "L" sound more than you should have.

Many awkward and funny moments were had. I [as a single missionary woman], once told a local Albanian Pastor's wife that "i was tired because i was pregnant" when i meant to say "i was tired because i am busy" . The words were way too close and easily confused. *blush*

Occasionally it worked in reverse. The one day someone [non English speaking] was singing a hymn, but the words came out as this, "We exhaust Thee, O Lord"....true story. Exhaust instead of exalt. Which led to much laughter and jokes and comments. The person was being super sincere, asking things like, "How can we exhaust God?" etc. too funny.

But the genuine truth, Thank God, is that we don't exhaust God. He is love. He doesn't love, it isn't just something He does, HE IS IT! The essence of everything love is, God is, without trying. It's the essence of who He is. one of the attributes of love is patience. God is patient. Not just patient but patient with us! again i say, Thank God! He is slow to anger and abounding in love and is well aware of our humanity and frailty. and thus i can confidently say, we don't exhaust him. Isn't that fantastic news?

Psalm 103:13-14The Voice (VOICE)

13 An earthly father expresses love for his children;
    it is no differentwith our heavenly Father;
The Eternal shows His love for those who revere Him.
14 For He knows what we are made of;
    He knows our frame is frail, and He remembers we came from dust