This morning on my way to work, I was reminded of something I did that really hurt someone I cared about. Oh how it made me cringe!!!

It was a particularly busy work week for me. There is no doubt that my relationship with the Lord was far from my mind. I was consumed with me and my stuff. I asked a fellow co-worked if she could help me with something and she very politely told me she was given other priorities and could not help… perfectly reasonable! This, however, frustrated me. In my frustration I jumped on the inner office chat with a work buddy and bad mouthed this individual.

A few hours later, after I was finished with the programming dilemma and finding myself victorious in accomplishing what I achieved, I called my insulted co-worker over to my desk to review it with me. I highly respected her opinion and she would always give great feedback and insight. She looked at my screen and oblivious to me, she saw the still open chat box and read what I wrote about her just a few hours prior. She looked through what I had did, gave her feedback and then quietly and hastily left the room. She left the room to cry. I had hurt her bad. She looked up to me and respected me and I crushed her with my words in a fit of selfish outlet.

The crushing part for me was that I didn’t mean those words. They were “in the moment” vindictive…much like a teenager screams “I hate you” when they get into an argument or when a toddler throws a tantrum when told “no”. However, that explanation would not make it better. I had really hurt this person, it didn’t matter what my feelings were or what I meant… they were out there.

So what do we do when we royally mess up? For me, I went to her and acknowledged what I wrote on the screen. I did not want her to have to be hurt AND then have to come to me to confront me. I confessed. I told her how valuable she was and sought forgiveness. Her grace was abundant! Of course, I did have to rebuild trust over time and there was damage to our friendship that would leave scars. That was the consequences I now had to deal with… oh poor me, right…

I also went and talked to the person I was chatting with and apologized to him. I told him that it was unfair to her and to him to have to bear my childish vent and to re-establish my true confidence in the my co-worker.

So why am I telling you all this? I feel that it is important to understand something about One Need crew. We mess up… a lot and on big scales and small scales. We hurt people. You don’t always find us with our nose in the Word and in the middle of intense fasts totally prepared for every fiery dart that comes our way. Sometimes we leave the house without putting on the armor of God… in fact, it’s much more often then we probably would like to admit.

My point is NOT to show that “it’s ok, we all mess up”. The point is to show that we are all SAVED by the same GRACE. We are all captives that are set free from it’s bondage. We all NEED Jesus’s grace DAILY. We all need to be humble. We all need to confess our sins to each other. We all forget His grace often and so therefore, we all need repentance.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jesse Horne