[Outspoken] Did you mess up it 2017?

Picture a busy restaurant with customers waiting to be seated, and with people laughing, eating, and drinking. The food is delicious and the conversation is good. Suddenly, a waitress, with a tray full of just prepared plates and clientele that are eagerly anticipating their meals, trips and spills food all over the floor. Everything stops, with the only remaining sound being the echoes of the plates and glasses that just crashed to the ground. Conversations, eating, and drinking cease while the pleasant faces of people enjoying a night out turn into shocked stares of disbelief.

Immediately she becomes embarrassed. As she tries to recover from the accident, thoughts race through her mind. What will her guests think? Will they be afraid that she will mess up again and spill food on them? Will the other servers be afraid to ask her for help? What will happen to that raise she requested from her boss? When customers come back will they say, “No, not that section please, that girl made a mess the last time we were here.”  And worse of all, because of what happened, would she now be disqualified from serving?

Well, that is the “real” world, but in God’s world He gives us room to make mistakes, even when the whole world stares in disbelief as we make a complete mess out of our lives. We lose friends, we lose support, and people are afraid to trust us again, wondering if we will mess up like the last time.

God on the other hand sees our messes as opportunities to show off His grace. He rushes over with his towels of comfort and encouragement, His bleach of righteousness, and His sanitizer of love and protection. And as we are still trying to clean things up ourselves He replies, “What mess?  I don’t see a mess.  I don’t even remember a mess. Now go in the back, wash up, change your clothes, and get back out there and keep serving.”  And best of all, because of what happened, we are now even more qualified for service because we are a testament of His grace.

Excerpted from the forthcoming poetry book Outspoken by Sherea VeJauan . Copyright © 2001 by Realistically Speaking Publishing Company.  All rights reserved. Excerpted by permission of the publisher. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Sheréa VéJauan is the author of  the Coffee, Candlelight & Conversations with God, as well as several other titles, including, the 2017 Goals Journal, Realistically Speaking: Speaking What's Real, Keeping What's Holy, and many others. Sheréa resides in Southern California, devoted wife of twenty-five years to her husband Brian, and mother to their three children, Reginald, Jasmyn and Kennedy. http://shereavejauan.com/