Grocery Store Grumble

"Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others." Colossians 3:13.

The grocery store. The place where we pick up daily necessities like bread and milk.

However, it can also be a place to pick up offenses. What? You've never left the store angry because someone ran their buggy into your heels, or the person in line ahead of you leaves mid-transaction to go get something else?

Supermarkets can be the devil's stomping ground disguised by rollback prices, taste testers, and tabloids.

Recently, I found myself leaving the grocery store incredibly offended and downright angry at the remarks that not one, but two snippy women had made to me.

As I fought the urge to give them a piece of my Un-Christian-like mind, the Lord reminded me of what He once said to the Father...not after someone took the last package of cookies on the shelf, but after being tortured and nailed to a cross. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

I left the grocery store and for days wrestled with the dirty looks and remarks the women made. Needless to say, I finally got over it.

If this is how long it can take any one of us to forgive someone for something so petty, would we have the grace to do the same for someone who beat us, whipped us, and then nailed us to a tree?

If we can't even bestow grace amid the aisles of produce and packaged goods, how are we being Christ- like?

Dad, I'm not even going to lie. Some people just frustrate me. To be really honest, some people hurt and offend me. Help me to not be easily offended, but instead bestow grace upon those who I don't feel like bestowing grace to. Grow my love for those I enjoy doing life with and even more for those that make it difficult. Teach me to forgive. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Genesis 4:7 Matthew 18:21-22