My Wrinkly Days

God is giving me all sorts of opportunities to practice "showing grace" at work.

I wasn't doing too well on Tuesday, and snapped at my co-worker. He wasn't even being mean to me, but I just got very frustrated with our phone conversation that wasn't going anywhere. The way I talked to him was definitely not the way I want to be talked to.

I noticed the last couple of weeks I had this big frown on my face a lot at work. It will curve wrinkles in my face and makes me age!

Then yesterday, Egawa-san and I went to attend a meeting at Honda in East Liberty, OH. Before I launch into what happened, I want to note that I LOVE Egawa-san. He is the nicest boss I ever worked for. I actually have been very blessed with my supervisors, but he's the best one yet. He's so easy going, and cares for me like I'm his daughter. And at the same time, he treats me with an amazing level of dignity and respect as an equal partner at work. Coming from a very male-dominated industry in a conservative society of Japan, he's unbelievably wonderful. I know I should never take him for granted or abuse his patience for me, yet I get short with him quite a bit.

During the meeting we sat at the very back row. While the speaker is talking, he would say stuff like "Ah, they sure like this stupid paperwork, don't they?" in a loud voice. (Honda does require horrendous amount of paperwork, by the way). Granted most people around us were American and Egawa-san was speaking in Japanese, there were still some Japanese associates from Honda, too. Towards the end of the meeting, he started flipping pages in a booklet for the presentation with a lot of noise. I got a strong urge to shush him and say "Can't you flip the pages a little more quietly!? People are looking at us, wondering what our problems are!!" I barely managed to keep my mouth shut, reciting in my head "The only person who can embarrass me is me. I don't have to take responsibility for what other people do".

Then I remembered what I read in my devotional from the book of Proverb the night before. It was about Proverb 17:9:

He who covers over an offense promotes love,

but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

The author of the book talked about a story of his professor at the seminary he attended. When the professor was young and just got on the tenure-track, an old preacher came to the school and gave a sermon. The old preacher spoke from his heart and many people were deeply touched by it. But the preacher came from an uneducated background, and a couple of things he said in the sermon were academically incorrect. So being a pompous young scholar that he was, the professor busted on him in front of everybody. Later the professor really felt the grieving of the Holy Spirit and wrote to the preacher, asking for forgiveness. The preacher wrote him back a short letter:

"Dear Charles,
Forgiven, Forgotten, Forever.
Your loving friend, James."

When the author of the devotional heard this story, the professor was in his seventies, and still had the letter after many decades. The love that the preacher showed had a such lasting impact on the professor, and was passed onto the next generation.

I pray that God will make me the promoter of love like that, instead of the one who "repeats the matter", which I have the tendency to be.

Besides, it's better for my youthful appearance, you know? I will look better longer if I went around smiling, rather than have the frown on my face all the time.