Things We Wish We Would Not Have Said

That’s kind of how I feel in our little sailboat parked among all these bigger sailboats and cruising yachts in our oversized slip.

However, everyone we have met has been welcoming and kind, sharing entertaining stories and helpful information. We have genuinely enjoyed all our conversations with our new neighbors, but here are a few things we wish we would not have said:

“Are you in finance”? – A question asked to the couple next door. They looked confused.

“Because of the name of your Beneteau…” Sense”; I thought it may be word play, you know like “more sense than cents?” As I say this, I realize that this only makes sense in my head because when you try to explain it out loud you can’t tell the difference between homophones. And because, well, it just doesn’t make that much sense.

The couple blinks at me at me, even more confused.

Even the professor looks confused. And embarrassed.

Then Maria catches on to what I’m trying to say and replies, “Sense isn’t the name of our boat, it’s the model.”

Duh

She didn’t say it condescendingly, like everyone we’ve met, she seems genuinely kind and friendly.

But still, duh!

When we were leaving the marina for the first time since moving our boat, we wrote our names and phone numbers on a slip of paper to give to one of our pier mates, just in case they saw our boat on fire or sinking and wanted to let us know. The Professor handed this to Calvin, who we were told lives nearby and is at the marina most days. The conversation went something like this:

“Hey Calvin, I wanted to give you my wife’s phone number…”

Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. “Your number is on there too,” I mumbled.

But Calvin was already replying, “Uh no thanks. I’ve got a girlfriend, and she is all I can handle. But thanks for the offer.”

Oddly, I feel so rejected.

Later, to the Professor, I ask, “Why would you say it like that?”

“I meant to say my and my wife’s numbers. I don’t know why it came out that way,” he replied.

Yeah, okay.

Duh

Upon meeting a new couple who just pulled their yacht into the slip across from ours, and having to ask for their names a second time:

"Floyd, as in Pink Floyd, if that helps you remember. And I’m Joanie.”

“Oh,” I said, as in Pink Floyd and Joanie and the Jets.”

Janie just smiled. I mean Joanie.

When we got back to our boat the Professor said, “Its Bennie, not Joanie.”

“Floyd and Bennie?”, I asked doubtfully.

“No, it’s Elton John’s ‘Bennie and the Jets’, or its Joan Jett, but you said Joanie and the Jets,” he said smugly.

Duh

Thankfully boat people are nice. And welcoming. And we’ve run into each other enough times that I can safely say that they don’t seem to be holding my ignorance or my awkwardness against me. Still, I still feel a bit like an interloper as a newbie on this pier.

Because of my inclination to feel out of place even when no one has given me cause, I do weird things.

Like insisting on eating our pizza below deck when we planned to dine in the cockpit just because there are a lot of people out, relaxing and dining in their cockpits and I feel like I am somehow an intruder in their universe.

Or insisting my husband accompany me to the marina’s laundry room “just until I get the laundry started” because I feel like if other people are there, they will assume I am trespassing.

The Professor is shocked that I am so ridiculously insecure. I am shocked that we’ve been married twenty years and he’s just realizing this now.

Maybe it's because of my tendency to always feel like an outsider who doesn't quite fit in that I found comfort and encouragement in Sunday's sermon.

Our pastor has just started an expository series on the book of Matthew. You probably know that the first 17 verses of Matthew is a genealogy from Abraham to Jesus. Sounds like it would be a boring sermon to start the series but think again!

Pastor Mack began with an overview of the book. It’s always mind blowing to me just how many Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah were fulfilled by Jesus Christ.

I also learned something new. I learned that Matthew uses a literary device in his genealogy list that utilizes number 14 in a particular way and for a particular reason. That whole bit was intriguing,

But the part of the sermon I found the most interesting were the names of the people in the history of our King, you know, that long list of names that is hard to resist skipping over when reading the Word?

The persons I am talking about, pointed out in the sermon by our pastor, included :

Tamar - who after suffering from his injustice, contrived to bear a child by her father-in-law

Rahab - a harlot

Ruth - a Moabite

Bathsheba - a woman married to Uzziah, wrongly used by King David

These are all women who, by most people’s measure, do not belong. Not in the lineage of the family of God. But Matthew, who had been himself despised for his profession as a tax collector for the Romans, included them. Why, especially in a culture and of a time when women’s names were not typically found in genealogies? Because all Scripture is God inspired and He wanted us to know them; to know their names.

And their place in His family; His heart.

Our pastor put it like this:

“Matthew is saying, Jesus is for you. He’s a Messiah for all people. It doesn’t matter what your past is. It doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish, or if you’re American, if you’re Chinese…it doesn’t matter what your family did, who your dad or your mom is, it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. God loves you."

Isn’t it comforting to know that when we come to Jesus, our Messiah, bowing our knee to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, we are all on equal ground and we are all accepted and loved unconditionally?

That was my favorite part of the message this Sunday.