Yes, but......

                                         I wrote this seven months ago, two months after it actually happened. I wanted to post it then, but was a little too ashamed at the time. Recent events in the news ( crazy Christian lady) made me go back and re-read the draft I hid among fifty or so other unpublished diatribes.

                                      This one is for all the imperfect, screw up Christians, like me...

               I was standing in our shop at work and a guy comes in, screaming at me. He wants something done NOW!...

                                      Not a boss, just a guy inflated with ego.

                               I screamed back at him a couple of words, a group of them, really...

                     None in themselves having any bad connotation, strictly speaking, from the dictionary...

                           But together, in the sequence and tone stated,they made the entire shop floor turn around and look at me, aghast in shock. I heard a voice from a tool box nearby. " And you claim to be a Christian!?!"..

                          My head sank. Disappointed in myself for the outburst, I felt a new sensation for an occasion like this.

                                                               Shame.

                                        This surprised me. Most of my Christian life I have went out of my way to insure that people knew I was not claiming to be any remnant of an example of how a Christian should look. I have explained time and time again that I am lower tiered than those of the exampled persuasion. I am a struggler and a bumbler of Faith...

                                                            It is just my way...

                                                            Not an example.

                                      The sad thing is, in the past few years I've really been trying much harder to be a better Christian than I have previously been. Maybe God put something strange inside the last couple dozen burgers I'd eaten this week, because somehow, that spiritual disclaimer I've always worn and hid behind, just wasn't cutting it anymore...

                               And what I said was bad enough to silence a room full of mechanics, each with many decades in a mill environment....

                      So I silently repented to God, and apologized profusely and owned that there was no excuse for my words or behavior to the men still standing and staring there...

                                              Since that moment, I have taken a lot of ribbing, much more than I really feel necessary. I squirm a bit, each time that story gets retold in our shop ( on a very regular basis ) as I apologize again for not only unchristian, but truly bad behavior. Each time, I have to fight every urge to justify and rationalize it away...

                                    God probably would have much preferred that I hadn't acted how I did, I'm pretty sure...

                                                                  But I did.

                                                              I screwed up...

                          

                                                  I guess I'm a lot more like that crazy Christian lady screaming on the news than makes me comfortable. Maybe the only difference between the two of us, is that I have been Graced enough to see it, Graced enough to want to do better?

                                   Maybe all of us are brothers and sisters in that same blessing?

                                        Maybe, But for the Grace of God, could go all of us...