Rough Edges

Do you ever meet people and think "there is no way I can be like them"? You see your flaws, you know the areas where you struggle, you see your rough edges and know that you just can't be that meek, mild, gentle, quiet person that you perceive others to be. And for those of you who have ever been on a mission trip before, I can almost guarantee that all of you have experienced the blow after the victory, the time when someone comes along and sticks a pin in your spiritual balloon so to speak. Well, that happened this morning. It was kind of a double whammy because not only was I reminded of my "rough edges"... those areas where I still need work, those areas that make me very far from obtaining that perfection that I so desire, but it also was a big blow after the past week as I'm still reeling from all that God did on our trip to the north. What was even more fun was that it happened early this morning, while I was still finishing my first cup of coffee for the day. Yeah, it was tough... it was kind of like a surprise attack, one where you get hit when you least expect it, but I guess that's why we're always called to dawn our spiritual armor, because it's not like Satan goes, "oh, wait a minute... she's not quite ready for me to bring this her way, let's wait a little bit". No, he likes to slam us when we're least expecting us, when our guard's down. The thing is when things come our way, we have two choices, to allow it to give an opportunity for our flesh, or to learn what lessons it has to teach us about our own sinful nature that's still very near the surface and seek to be refined from the experience. Well... I'm still battling with myself about doing what glorifies God in the situation, and at 7:30 in the morning, my flesh is definitely more at the surface than I would like, but even on tough days when Jesus was tired, He still remained sinless even when faced with "unfair attacks", so I guess I just need to pick myself up, dust myself off and pray that I don't allow my flesh to win this one and allows God's sandpaper to still slowly smooth those rough edges.