The One Remark

"Whoever trusts in the LORD is safe." Proverbs 29:25

I will never forget one of my performance reviews when we lived in Colorado.

I know I worked more hours than anybody there. I volunteered more than anyone to come in. I made myself available, I was a team player, and I walked into that office fully expecting to hear that I had exceeded expectations, because that is what I had done, and because with that comes a better raise, and I had a family to support. Gabe was a year old. Alicia was pregnant with Chloe.

And my manager sat me down and told me all the things she loved about my work ethic. She said she was glad I was there. She said I had made great advances as an employee. And then she gave me one negative remark, one, and here it was.

I was an over-zealous worker. I was too gung ho about my job. I was too positive.

And for that, instead of exceeding expectations, I met them.

That one line made every hour of it feel worthless.

And it is amazing to me, still, how that works. You can receive a hundred encouragements and a hundred compliments, and one criticism will be the one you carry home in the car, and turn over at the sink, and take to bed with you, and wake up with in the morning.

Why is that.

I think it is because the compliments only tell you what you already needed to be true, and so they slide off. But the criticism tells you what you have always been afraid was true, and so it sticks. It is not new information. It is confirmation.

Which means the problem was never the review.

The problem is the thing in you that was already waiting to hear it.