Hoping for God's Grace

Hoping for God's Grace

I guess I'm having a hard time coming to terms with myself. Sometimes I am joyful and grateful for the gifts that God has given me.  There are times when I see those gifts shining bright and I feel the good things.  I feel God's spirit like a warm breeze doing the waltz through my hair.  But there are other times, when God's spirit feels far away.  When I see the ugly things that are deep within me come out.

To keep moving forward and getting over the ugly things, I'm practicing this new rule for my life that encourages activities every day that fuel me.  So my fueling activity for today: getting a book from the library.

I know it's simple and easy but I have always loved the library. Being so close to so much free information makes me smile.  I wish I could eat my way through the library bookshelves, page by page, so that every piece of information in every book would be in me.  Sometimes I wish my fantasies were less libriarian-ish.

As I walked myself to the library, I crossed a busy intersection.  A car was turning and had to stop to let me cross.  Once I was in front of her car, the driver honked at me.  I hate horns, I hate road-rage drivers and most of all I hate how I responded.  I dropped no less than 10 very loud f-bombs on her in that middle of that intersection- one after the other feel out of my mouth. I couldn't hold them in.  It was like each word was a heave of horrible energy that I didnt know was lying deep within in me.  There is no doubt that my bright orange shirt and prolific profanities caught the attention of all 9 lanes waiting for their green light. Once I realized my own intensity over a horn, I turned to walk away as she yelled the last word to me as she drove off.

Hands shaking I walked past the train station to regroup.  But my thoughts were interrupted by a group 20-somethings standing in the hot August sun vomiting up their lunch.  Loud spewing noises echoed off the buildings and I thought of the ugliness that humanity is... that I am.

My pace picked up and I found my way to the library and was thankful the restrooms were at the entryway- as I'm not sure how much longer my tears and anger would stay quiet.  I was thankful the smell of the bathroom--its lingering smell of thousands of books and old paper...and industrial soap. I hid in the stall and did my 'hold-it-together-I'm-not-really-okay' crying.  In the minutes spent in the bathroom, I went through my blaming, I went through things I wish I would have said, I went through the I hate people thoughts, I went through the embarrassment of being a Jesus-lover and responding that way.

This story is embarrassing to me.  It's one of those things that makes me cringe when I think about what I said to another human.  It's one of those stories that makes you come to terms with who you are and with your own brokenness.  It's just that next time, I hope to respond better.  Maybe God's grace will still find me today.