Wednesday, 17 June 2009

• Pause and Proofread

  Before a letter can go out of my office, I make certain that at least one other person proofreads it. In the case of something going out to the entire organization, I have a minimum of two people proofread it or look it over before it is sent. I consider myself fairly competent in the area of grammar and extremely particular in the area of presentation. However, much to my embarrassment, the item sent to others for a "second look" often comes back with many corrections or suggestions written in red.
  
  This afternoon I proofread something for someone and thought, "How could she have let this go? Didn't she see these GLARING errors?" It was at that very moment that I thought about why errors like that occur.
  
  When I write something, I know what I mean to say. My mind thinks through the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, and the page, and my fingers begin to serve as the tool for getting the words from mind to screen (or page, as the case may be.) The problem comes when my fingers get ahead of or fall behind the thoughts making their way out for the public to read. The end result is that things get messed up - words become misspelled, words are dropped from the middles of sentences, and emotions felt in the heart are poorly represented by the end result of the written words.
  
  We ALL make these mistakes at one time or another. It's inevitable. So in reality, the problem is not so much that the mistakes occur, but that we don't see them. Our minds jump over neglected letters and even fill in the missing words. Our emotions are expressed in our minds as we re-read our own thoughts.
  
  Enter the proofreader. And the red pen. And the careful teaching and explanation about the markings as a means of helping the writer not to make the same errors next time. The end result? A carefully-crafted page with words that look like they should and mean what they were written to communicate.
  
  So what's the big deal about proofreading? Well, my lesson from today's "red-pen moments" served to remind me that I need to apply Psalm 19:14 to my writing as well as to my spoken words. The verse states the Psalmist's prayer as he asks the Lord: "let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer." I do not wish to minimize the holiness of God in any way, but in essence, I was reminded today that God must be my "Proofreader."
  
  How many of us post things on Facebook that we later regret? Our emotions run from ecstatically happy to woefully depressed, and our Facebook or blog postings reflect those extremes. I've been guilty of it far too many times. During those "yipes - - - what-was-I-thinking" moments, I am grateful for the "delete" option. Yet if I would have paused before posting and asked the Lord to let me see my words through HIS eyes, I might have made better choices that could have prevented the use of "delete."
  
  So I guess the way I'm choosing to apply these thoughts are in the following ways:
  
  1. "Let the words of my mouth" - I try to write the way I would speak, but I will strive to be certain that I am speaking in a way that pleases Christ. That means even if something is funny, it is still appropriate, properly-timed, and not unkind or ungodly in nature.
  
  2. "And the meditation of my heart" - My motive needs to be to honor my Lord and Savior. I used to read MANY posts each day talking of God's grace in trials where the emphasis was on the one facing the trial and the comment sections attested to that. I have done it myself. But I desire to leave the reader or listener thinking not of how miserable my sorry little life must be, but of how God's grace is truly "more than enough!" Am I known for my pain or for being a demonstration of His grace?
  
  3. "Be acceptable in Your sight" - In every setting, every thought and every word must make it past His "red pen."
  
  4. "O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer." - I can't do this just because I want to. I must daily choose to ask Him to allow the strength He provides to take my thoughts, words, and motives and let them be a channel for His love.
  
  Yes, there will undoubtedly be many red markings on words that I speak and on the words I intend to write - even on Facebook - but I trust that before I ever select "enter," I will run the words past the Master Proofreader.

  
   

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