“Life is a long lesson in humility.”

Have you ever been publicly flogged?  Now I have had more than my fair share of public embarrassment, including slipping on a stage while preforming with a concert band in front of an entire auditorium full of people with my skirt flying up around my waist.  No I am not exaggerating it is quite a funny story . . . now.  That isn’t all.  I just don’t epitomize the definition of grace and therefore have to live with the consequences. 

However I must admit that I will take public embarrassment any day of the week over a public flogging.  Let me explain how I  now know the difference.

Let me begin by stating the obvious for anyone that knows me even slightly . . . I am an incredibly private person.  I just don’t share my personal thoughts and feelings with anyone.  There is a part of me that nobody gets to know.  I think a few people have seen bits and pieces of it, but with very, very few exceptions I keep things to myself.  I am not scared to admit that I do it out of fear and self-preservation.  Maybe it isn’t right, but it’s done nonetheless.  Walls, walls everywhere!  Walls nobody gets to penetrate. 

Yesterday I was scheduled to teach a lesson.  I fretted over the subject matter but only because I have been in too many lessons concerning these topics to know that they can easily run marathons along tangents that drive the Spirit away and offend class members.  Naturally I didn’t want either to happen.  The topics of discussion that I was given to teach were on being judgmental and pride.  Take a huge bit out of that and swirl it around your mouth for a while and see how it tastes. 

I was ever so grateful to have a friend in the class and I privately asked to help me keep the lesson on target.  It put me at ease having her there.

The discussion was going so well and I was pleasantly surprised that it was sticking spiritually to the subject matter.  I wasn’t ready for what happened toward the middle of the lesson though.  Of course who is ever ready for a preverbal 2x4 to the back of the head? 

A comment was being made concerning pride.  As I was attentively listening tears flooded my eyes, I couldn’t breathe and an overwhelming feeling a pain hit my heart to the core.  I honestly wanted to excuse myself quickly from the room and go home.  The word “guilty” must have been written in blazing red letters across my forehead.  I couldn’t stop the emotion surging through me and so my very personal flaw became one for all to see a moment only after I myself discovered it.  I felt like I had been stripped naked and whipped.

As I logically look at it now a bit removed from the situation, I realize that it is probably the only way that I would have ever admitted it to even myself and probably would have never admitted it to anyone else as I would have swept it behind the walls and just fixed it. 

Our shortcomings, failings and mistakes sometimes are posted for all to see.  I think the lessons learned out of such events are as unique as we are individually.  The question then becomes are we going to allow it to drag us down and make us bitter or use it to better ourselves?