Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Grace

Had another one of those moments were I think someone totally misunderstood me, I hate that. Why do people think they know you after only meeting you once? Why do they think that they can say what they want to you?

I had to access Grace quite a lot, what do we do, defend ourselves? give the person a slap? or just apologise and take it easy. To me the last option is hardest but probably best.

When I was youth leader at the church in Diss I also worked in a bar, we had a Christmas party and one of the guys got really drunk and upset about a girl, he stormed out into the car park and was about to scratch her car up with some keys! The rest of the people in the bar were I worked asked me to go outside and calm him down, being as I was a christian and had built a really good reputation for being calm and kind!

So anyway I went outside tried to talk to him and he charged at me swearing and shouting and was about to attack me, I could have clamed him down, but instead I opted to punch him. The instant I did it I knew it was wrong, he flopped down like a sack of potatoes and I had hit him so hard he needed plastic surgery on his mouth were his teeth had come through his lip! I remember coming back in with this guy walking behind me covered in blood, and just having to leave. I felt humiliated and disgusted with myself.

Obviously I went and apologised but my first reaction was wrong. Grace should have prevailed but instead I lashed out...

That was the last time I hit out physically, the church were good about it and so was the guy I hit. But even as I type this I feel ashamed.

I still lash out verbally, but it's no good.

Retaliation physical or verbal doesn't work, does it?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aw, sorry for this not very eloquent comment but I sorry agree retaliation or violence of any sort leaves you being the more affected and more damaged by it. thus it plagues your consiousness and guilty that you should have acted differently.

Neil Harrison said...

Hi Brian, thanks for the comment. I just posted about a recent trip to Barcelona where i encountered a little old church on a hill overlooking the city where they have a prayer room that has had someone praying 24/7 for 40 years - it was an unexpected but amazing surprise. Thought you might be interested.