Healthy RGV Issue 107 - October Has Us Thinking Pink

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE · OCTOBER 2017
DELETE!
DELETE!
DELETE!
The little boy was in a particularly bad mood
that day. He had been having a hard time
getting along with the other children at
kindergarten. Then, when his teacher had to
correct him for something he was doing, he
looked up at her and said, “I can do it if I want
to!”
From the look that came over her face, he
knew he had stepped over the line. He was
in trouble and knew it immediately. So he
smiled up at her, moved his pointer finger
with a clicking motion, and said, “Delete!
Delete! Delete!”
Haven’t we all wished for the delete key
after saying something we knew immediately
should have been left unsaid? Looks like
Google Mail is going to give its users
something of that option in its popular email
program.
One magazine calls it the “holy grail of all
email functions.” New this summer, those of
us who use Gmail have the option that just
might have saved our young kindergarten
friend a session in Time Out! To activate it,
open the app and look in the upper righthand
corner for the little gear icon. Click it,
then go to Settings and scroll down to Undo
Send. Click Enable. Voila! You will henceforth
have the option to recall any email – up to a
maximum of 30 seconds after you hit “Send.”
I’ve set mine already. My chief fear is that
the 30-second maximum may not give me
enough time to come to my senses in some
cases.
How about you? Can you recall a time with
a family member or co-worker when being
quick to shoot from the lip got you into
trouble? Do you think of a friend from whom
you are now alienated because of hitting
“Send” with your tongue just a bit too hastily?
Some of those hair-triggered comebacks
sounded awfully cute at the time – but
proved to have deadly consequences for a
relationship that still should be functional.
But there was no “Undo Send” button.
All of us know the danger of out-of-control
tongues. We know that gossip, falsehoods,
and angry retorts do so much harm. Yet we
keep hitting the Send key and have to reap
the bitter consequences of our actions.
As you start a fresh week with your family
and at work, pray for the self-control that
the Holy Spirit gives. Ask for the humility to
respond to the warning signals that both the
Spirit and your own better impulses send in
stressful times. Try to hold back the venom
that a sharp tongue can emit.
“WHEN WORDS
ARE MANY,
TRANSGRESSION
IS NOT LACKING,
BUT THE PRUDENT
ARE RESTRAINED IN
SPEECH”
(PROVERBS 10:19 NRSV).
Or, if I may dare to paraphrase: “Hitting
‘Send’ too quickly is sure to stir up trouble,
when ‘Delete! Delete! Delete!’ is often your
wiser choice.”
By Rubel Shelly
8 HEALTHY MAGAZINE