I just found out there’s actually a button you can click on Gmail to UNSEND a message we’ve just sent and wish we hadn’t!  The catch is, we have to do it within 30 seconds, or off it goes, into cyberspace, on its way to the recipient.  Then we can hope and pray it gets lost in cyberspace and they never get it.  Or that it gets buried and never noticed in their email.  Because if they read it, we’ll have to do damage control.

But hey, 30 seconds sure beats no chance at all to take back our words!  Even the most appropriate among us probably has had times when they’ve wished “it hadn’t come out”, or “hadn’t come out that way”.

Unfortunately, wrong thoughts do come out.  “…out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Mat. 12:34).

Let’s look at some things we wish we could “unsend”:

~Harsh words spoken in anger to our mate, our child, our friend, our colleague, our boss (uh oh)

~DEstructive critical comments about someone’s actions and/or performance

~Insult humor—“oh, I was just kidding”— except that person get hurt anyway

~Gossip—either passed along or initiated

~Comments that show our insecurity, making others uncomfortable and/or pity and disrespect us.

~Complaints arising from frustration, a bad mood, dissatisfaction, etc., that bother others and/or spread discontent

~Other stuff best not said (that covers anything I may have missed!)

Spoken or written, we regret “sending” them.  And, if we spoke or wrote them about someone else, the damage is even worse, because more than one person receives the message.  Negative comments always spread like diseases, including to the person they were spoken/written about.

I recently found myself in such a situation.  They happen less and less as I mature spiritually, emotionally, and socially, but, unfortunately, I haven’t “arrived” when it comes to practicing perfect communication.

In this instance, I had spewed out critical, complaining, words to my husband about something that had gone wrong (at least in my estimation).  He responded by wisely saying, “I don’t want to hear about it!”

At first, I felt put-off, but after a minute, I realized he was right—I really shouldn’t have created emotional atmospheric pollution by sending those words out.

You’ve had those realizations too.

But unless we’ve blown it on Gmail and realize our error before the 30 second limit, we can’t unsend those messages.  So what can we do?

  • Apologize—confess what we said/wrote was wrong and ask forgiveness
  • If it happened in public—retract the statement, again with an apology
  • Apply God’s grace to ourselves. Beating ourselves up over it only makes us avoid the person/people we messed up with, which makes them wonder if you really don’t like them! Or, it makes them lose even more respect for you because you won’t face them.

Plus, it disconnects us from the Lord– so we lose our source of communicating with love and understanding—so we say/write more stuff we wish we hadn’t… (vicious cycle).

  • Go back and do it right. And keep doing it right.  It may take time for the person/people to trust you and want to hear from you again.  But eventually they’ll get the idea that our bad communication was a fluke, not what we usually do.  Especially if they’re realizing and giving God’s grace.

Too bad there’s no “unsend” button for what we say, or even write outside of Gmail.  But there is grace, and power in Him, to keep growing in the messages we send.