I hate excuses. It drives me up a wall to watch people make excuses all the time. I was going to, but.... I meant to, but... It's not my fault!
No, it never is. As a coach, teacher, trainer, wife, mother, and everything else I have found that there are just some people that choose to make excuses. I do not care for those people. I have heard it said, "An excuse is just a reason without a cause." Seems a little to flighty for me. So let's break that down. A reason is why something did or did not happen. Cause and effect relationship. I spilled the drink, now I am thirsty and sad. Reason for being thirsty and sad? I spilled the drink. So an excuse means having the effect without the cause. When my child acts a fool (technical terminology) but there is no cause, it means I have a pain in the butt for a child. They will probably try to make an excuse for poor behavior, but there is truly no cause. When my child acts a fool (that might be one word, perhaps hyphenated?) but they are lacking serious sleep, have had poor nutrition, and might be getting sick, now we have a reason. The definition of excuse as a verb is to attempt to lesson the blame attaching to (a fault or offense); to seek to defend. As a noun it means a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense. Quick question - do either of these sound good to you? Everyday speak: You got caught and now you're trying to make things better for yourself. I absolutely hate that. And I believe it is something that I was just born with, or received with the Holy Spirit. I can vividly remember in fourth grade a time I got in trouble. My teacher was continually out with sickness. During a time with a substitute I began to lose my mind. She asked us multiple times to be quiet and this one kid would not shut up. Everyone was frustrated with him, so I dealt with it. Yup, I politely asked him to quiet himself so that we might perhaps have enough time on the playground to enjoy ourselves. Ha! No, I slapped him across the face. Literally. You could see my fingers on his cheek. My word. Well, the sub naturally made me put three checks on my calendar (you know, classroom management stuff). I did. I lost recess. Not a big deal. So many checks for the month and you loss so much, and all that jazz. I don't remember because it was my only time writing check marks. Anywho, the teacher comes back and sees the checks on my calendar and calls me over. She is very concerned. She was so upset that someone would write three check marks on my calendar so that they wouldn't get in trouble. "So," she began, "do you think you can remember who it was?" Woo! I had the opportunity to now throw Mr. Won't-Shut-Up-Long-Enough-For-Us-To-Leave-The-Cafeteria under the bus and say he did it. I didn't. I couldn't. That's dishonest. I did what I thought was right. I told her. She just looked at me. She tried to convince me that I didn't do that and that I shouldn't have those check marks, but I assured her I did and should. She asked if I stood on the wall for the next recess and I told her I did. Then she told me to erase the check marks. I couldn't. I didn't feel right. But she told me that I needed to. That all the other times I had been so well behaved took care of it and that I had paid the price while she was out, so there was no need to miss out on more. I didn't fully grasp it at the age of nine, but I sure do now. For a long time I just thought she didn't believe me or that she thought I was hiding something a friend did. And maybe that is the truth, but I'm going to choose to believe it is more than that. I believe she was showing grace. Perhaps I just see it that way now because of motherhood, or maybe I just know more of God, but that was how God's grace has worked for me my entire life. As a parent though, I'm not as grace giving as God. When my kids make excuses, I have little grace for their mistakes. The rule is to hold a plate with two hands while walking to the table. You held it with one, turned it sideways, spilled everything, then looked at me and said, "I don't know what happened." Little grace. The rule is to hold a plate with two hands while walking to the table. You held it with one, tilted it slightly, spilled everything, then apologized while attempting to clean the mess, acknowledging the fact that you didn't follow the rule. GRACE. The rule is to hold a plate with two hands while walking to the table. You held it with two hands and walked calmly but someone pushed their chair out and bumped you, you spilled everything and said, "Oh no" while attempting to clean the mess. GRACE. SO MUCH GRACE. I'm fickle. I know. But I received grace in that classroom, because I owned up to it. I knew I did wrong and knew I deserved the penalty. So she let me off the hook. As a coach I had rules. My players knew that academics were first, not second. If they missed a test and had to reschedule, we looked at the REASON for missing, sickness etc., and how to remedy that situation - late to practice, etc. However, if the student just didn't show up for first block and then had to take the test after school during my practice time then they didn't play in the next game. Simple. Now I had all different levels of disciplinary action depending on the issue at hand, but you get the picture. If they were late, they ran. "I was with this teacher." If they didn't tell me, it was an excuse. They always had ample time to come to me or text me and say, "I need to meet with _____, but I'll get to practice as soon as I can." There were plenty of girls that understood a reason versus an excuse. There is no excuse for no communication. Excuses are the guilty party's way of trying to get themselves less punishment. Excuses are the death of our society. We all have excuses - whine, whine, whine. Very few of us have reasons. Weight loss is an easy one for me to choose. The excuse I heard often was, "I was just so hungry" and fill it in. They ate the snacks in the break room or they stopped at McDonald's. To me that is saying, "I didn't plan ahead to think about the fact that I would be hungry." The reason you were hungry is that you didn't plan and pack healthy snacks. The excuse is that you were so hungry it was your only option. I know. I want to make excuses all the time. I want to blame the medicine or the fact that my son is an amazing baker. Those things do not have control over my will. I do. I can make excuses, or man up and say, "Put down the cookie. Walk away from the kitchen." I have seen the look on my son's face when he screws up and comes to me upset. He tried his best to fix it, but there's still a mess. Then I say, "Ok" and clean up the rest. He just looks in awe and wonder. Why is Mom not yelling or upset? Easy, responsibility. Ownership of the mistake, action taken to remedy the situation, now we have responsible people. God doesn't want our excuses. He understands our reasons. He would prefer our hearts to take ownership of the faults, turn to him from the sin, and receive the grace awaiting us. Our spiritual lives are our responsibility. It's time we take it as such.
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