“Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise.” — Proverbs 15:31
My daughter does competitive cheer.
If you just read that and thought, “Oh, how fun!” — you have clearly never written a check for competitive cheer.
But here’s the thing. Underneath the glitter and the bows and the routines that cost more than my first car — my daughter is learning something I still haven’t mastered at my age.
Her coach is excellent. National championships on the wall to prove it. She doesn’t coach softly, and she doesn’t sugarcoat. And one day, in the middle of practice, she looked at my daughter and said six words that wrecked me:
“Imani, accept the correction and move on.”
That’s it. No long explanation. No follow-up meeting. No carefully worded email with three paragraphs of context. Just — accept it. And move on.
When Imani told me, I laughed. And then I got real quiet. Because I thought about every time someone has corrected me and I did the exact opposite of moving on.
The Spin
You know the spin. Someone tells you something you need to hear and instead of hearing it, you build a case. Well, they don’t know the full story. That’s not fair. I had a reason. They should have said it differently. Who are they to tell me?
I’ve done this with bosses. With friends. With my husband. With God.
Especially with God.
“My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves.” — Proverbs 3:11–12
I read that verse and I think — okay, I get it. Correction is love. But in the moment? In the moment, correction feels like an accusation. And my instinct isn’t to accept it. My instinct is to explain why I’m the exception.
TLDR
I was sitting in the parent viewing area at the cheer facility, telling another mom about this sermon idea. About how my daughter’s coach had said this thing that stopped me cold. And somehow we got on the subject of emails. You know the ones — the emails you open and think, “Let me go get a cup of coffee before I tackle this one.”
She told me her old boss had a correction for that. The first time someone sent him one of those novels, he’d type back four words:
Too Long. Didn’t Read.
And if it happened again? Just four letters:
TLDR.
She said it didn’t take long before that employee accepted the correction and moved on. The emails got shorter. The point got clearer. And the work got better.
The Over-Explanation
Here’s what I think we get wrong as Christians — on both sides of the correction.
When we need to correct someone, we write the novel. We pad it with compliments. We over-explain. We’re so worried about hurting feelings that we bury the point under six layers of context. And by the time we get to the actual correction, the other person doesn’t even know what they’re supposed to change.
And when we’re the ones being corrected? We write a different novel. The internal one. The one with all the reasons we’re right and they’re wrong and this isn’t fair and we didn’t deserve it.
Both novels need an editor.
“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” — Hebrews 12:11
A harvest. Not a debate. Not a defense. A harvest.
But you don’t get the harvest if you never accept the seed.
Six Words
A cheer coach in a gym full of preteens figured out what most of us spend a lifetime resisting. The correction doesn’t need a committee meeting. It doesn’t need a three-paragraph email or a therapy session or a weekend to process.
Sometimes it just needs six words.
Accept the correction. And move on.
Move on to the better version. Move on to the harvest. Move on to the wisdom that only comes from letting the correction do its work instead of fighting it every step of the way.
“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.” — Revelation 3:19
The next time someone corrects you — a boss, a friend, a coach, a verse that hits a little too close — try something different. Don’t spin. Don’t explain. Don’t build the case for why you’re the exception.
Accept the correction. And move on.
And now for fun — here’s Leanne Morgan’s bit about competitive cheer:
Niki McDowell is a Stage 3B triple-negative breast cancer survivor, a wife, a mom, and a woman who does her homework. She writes from somewhere between faith and the fight.
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