Saving Grace

By Lorde Christian

I've always been considered a nice person and I usually am, but sometimes sarcastic words pop into my mind. Occasionally they escape from my mouth. This amuses my coworkers but it shames me because I don't want to hurt anybody, and from past experience I know how much words can hurt.
I remember cruel words from my teen years, some overheard and some said to my face. "I see that flat nose hurt her foot." "Why would anyone go out with that flat-chested freak?" "Hey, four-eyes, is that a zit on your forehead? Gross!"

• Language: English
• Publisher: ilovetoreadandwritebooks
• Release date: Jul 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463599242

Book preview

I’ve always been considered a nice person and I usually am, but sometimes sarcastic words pop into my mind. Occasionally they escape from my mouth. This amuses my coworkers but it shames me because I don’t want to hurt anybody, and from past experience I know how much words can hurt.

I remember cruel words from my teen years, some overheard and some said to my face. I see that flat nose hurt her foot. Why would anyone go out with that flat-chested freak? Hey, four-eyes, is that a zit on your forehead? Gross!

Gym class was torture. I dreaded the grimaces on the faces of the boys I chose for square dancing, the agony of waiting and knowing I would be last when it was their turn to choose, the jeers of the other girls when I fumbled the softball or failed to pass the basketball fast enough.

Youth group at my church stopped bringing me solace when our new minister’s daughter took an extreme dislike to me. Friends from my childhood and even my own cousin chose to side with her and bully me. I slipped quietly into my books and music and tried to stop yearning for normal relationship with someone. I didn’t learn until I was much older that it was all right to defend myself, and by then I had felt so much emotional pain that I didn’t want to make anyone else feel it–even if they richly deserved it.

Still, when I’m at the door welcoming customers into the store with a smile and their response is You need to get me a small cart, I don’t need a big one, I want to tell them that they walked past five of them on the way in and should have grabbed one. Instead, I apologize and offer to go outside and find one for them. When I come back in with the cart, they inform me that it’s wet and I need to dry it off. Of course, I know it’s wet since the rain that’s dripping off the cart is also dripping off my hair and clothing but my response is, Let me get some paper towel and dry it off for you.

An hour later, a cashier will call me to bring a large cart to their lane. I know I’ll find the customer that had to have the small cart standing there with enough merchandise to fill two large carts. As they leave the store, they shove the small cart at me even though they’re walking right past the corral the carts belong in. I bite back the sarcastic words crowding my tongue, smile, and tell the customer, Thank you! Have a nice day!

Then I silently pray for God to take the burdens from my shoulders so that when the nice, friendly customers come in I can welcome them with sincerity, wish them a nice day and mean every word. It usually works; these are the kind of prayers God answers immediately.

Other prayers take time, and sometimes the answer is no. When the good-looking guy that sat in front of me in Language Arts class walked into the store one day and stopped to talk to me, I thought it was a long delayed answer to my prayers.

Joe was one of those guys that was so handsome it almost