She Told Me I Was Too Cheap

A customer told you that you do not charge enough, and you have done nothing about it for five months.

She was not being polite and she was not angling for anything. She said it plainly, standing in your workroom, holding the thing she had come to collect. She said, you know this is worth more than what you ask for it, and she meant it, and you could see she meant it.

And you said something about how it is fine, and how you would rather people could afford it, and she let it go because she is not the sort to push.

Here is the strange part, and this is the part worth looking at. It got harder after that, not easier. Before she said it, you could believe it was your private opinion. Now somebody else has said it out loud in your own room and you still have not moved.

I am not going to tell you what to charge. I am going to talk about what it costs to be told the truth by somebody who likes you.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend

There is a line in Proverbs about being hurt by somebody who is on your side, and it is not about cruelty at all.

It sets two things against each other: the honest word that stings, and the flattery that feels lovely and is worth nothing.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. (Proverbs 27:6, King James Version)

You were handed something faithful in that room, and it has never once been an attack on you. Proverbs 27:6 calls the wound of a friend faithful rather than unkind, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that into a workroom with shelves of stock along the wall.

Sit with the word faithful. Not accurate, not fair, not well meant. Faithful, which is a word about loyalty. Scripture says the thing that stung was the loyal act in the room that day.

And what she did was the harder thing. Flattery is easy and costs nobody anything. Telling a woman in her own workroom that she undercharges risks the whole friendship, and she did it anyway.

You have been told the truth by somebody loyal, and that has never once been something to recover from. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an old proverb about friends and enemies reach a woman holding a finished piece up to the light, and Proverbs 27:6 calls the stinging word the faithful one.

What you did with it

Let me say what happened in the five months since, because nothing is what happened, and nothing is an action.

You took a true thing that was handed to you and you filed it where you file compliments, which is the place you do not look. And you told yourself a version in which she was being kind rather than accurate, because that version requires nothing.

You were filing a fact as a compliment, and it has never once been one. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman what she has done with a true thing, and the written word calls the wound of a friend faithful in Proverbs 27:6.

And there is a reason this particular kindness is so hard to hold. While it was only your own suspicion, you could carry on. Once somebody else has said it, carrying on becomes a decision, and you have never wanted to be a person who decided this.

So the five months of nothing have not been indecision. They have been a decision made quietly, every day, in your own workroom.

You are allowed to act on what you already know, and knowing it has never once obliged you to wait for a better witness. His Spirit is the one who makes a true thing liveable rather than just sayable, and Proverbs 27:6 sets the faithful wound against the lovely lie and tells you which is which.

Say it back

So here is the exercise, and it is not a price change.

Say what she said, out loud, in the room where you work. Her actual words, as near as you can remember. You know this is worth more than what you ask for it.

You are able to repeat a true sentence, and repeating it has never once been vanity. Proverbs 27:6 treats the friend's honest word as the loyal thing in the room, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a kind true sentence hearable for a woman who has kept it in a drawer for five months.

Then do not argue with it. That is the whole discipline. No yes but, no she does not know what the materials cost, no she is just being nice. Say it and then be quiet for a second.

That is all for today. You are not changing anything yet. You are taking one thing out of the drawer and letting it be in the room with you.

You were never required to defend yourself against a kindness, and you are not required to now. The Spirit of God carries a loyal word past the reflex to explain it away, and the written word calls the kisses of an enemy deceitful and the wound of a friend faithful in Proverbs 27:6.