Cover Her Face

This is the title of a crime novel by P.D. James. Agatha Christie also used it as a possible title for one of her novels, but James ended up publishing first. It's a phrase that I associate with scariness, sin, and death. I know, it's another positive blogpost...

When you come face-to-face with your own sin, and you realize it, do you find it shocking? Do you find it disgusting? Do you cringe in disbelief? Or do you make excuses? And then you fight believing that you are in the wrong?

I had a phone call with a co-worker this week where this person basically called me out for a good ten minutes on my rudeness. And the thing is, I had been rude. Not just that day, but in previous months leading up to that moment. In previous emails, I'd been really blunt and impatient. I get frustrated with this person's lack of grammar, lack of ability to put together a cohesive email that makes sense, and inability to understand my subject area at work. And I knew it while I was on the phone. I have been getting more and more frustrated about it, and I've felt a lot of anger about it. So even though I was "blunt" in my previous emails, in my heart, it was more. My heart was black about what this person didn't do well.

I'm not going to lie, in the phone call I tried to point out the fact that this person was a bad communicator. But that's not what the phone call ended up being about, it was really about this person calling me out. And I realized right at the front that I needed to apologize, that my first apology might have been disingenuous, and that any constructive criticism was not going to be listened to in the waves of the hostility I felt coming from the other person. It was not a phone call that ended well, it was upsetting, and I asked how many times I could apologize. In a sarcastic manner, I might add. 70x7?

I have really thought about this a lot over the last few days; I can't seem to let it go. I want to prove that I was right, that I was the bigger person, that I was better. And that, too, fills me with shame. I know, I know, I know I'm supposed to be sanctified through this, but I almost don't want to be.

I read this from Romans 7 this weekend and found it comforting:
"14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."

Who will deliver me from this body of death, indeed.