When Our Inner Ugly Leaks Out

All we needed were a few ingredients for my daughter's high school speech class. Emily had decided that for her demonstration speech assignment she'd prepare the dip everyone raves about. So we wandered in to the grocery store, where we always end up laughing about slightly awkward situations.

Like the time my graceful girl backed into a guy's grocery cart because she was singing while flailing her arms. Or the time we inadvertently trapped a poor man between a cereal display, our cart, and our bodies. That was weird but ultimately hilarious.

As we walked through the front of the store, we steered ourselves toward a tortilla chip display, attempting to weave past a slow-moving woman in front of us, to no avail. Emily moved left, and the lady, unaware we were behind her, moved left. So Emily dodged right--but the lady suddenly veered to the right.

This little grocery store dance lasted about 30 seconds, finally ending when the woman dead-stopped right in front of us. We nearly crashed into her.

The whole scenario was ridiculously funny. The woman, now aware that we were behind her, turned around and attempted to move out of our way; we stepped back and smiled at her. As she walked away we burst into giggles.

The woman, now a dozen feet away from us, heard our laughter, spun around, and with flashing eyes and a voice more fit for evacuating large crowds in very high winds than a grocery store aisle, let loose with an angry burst. "What? We don't live around here!!" Then she turned in a huff, shaking her head as if my daughter and I had deeply insulted her.

Apparently this dear woman thought we were laughing at her. In reality, my teen daughter and I were simply enjoying a laugh together over yet another funny grocery store situation.

Initially I felt sad for this woman, a stranger wearing a purse with "Boston" stamped all over it. Clearly she was having a bad day. Her inner ugly had leaked out in a big way.

But the incident also made me think. While I will probably never scream at random strangers who laugh in grocery stores, heaven help me, my inner ugly still manages to leak out at other times. Like when I'm driving in mind-numbing traffic. I loathe traffic. I'm truly making an effort in the "Let's Not Let Our Inner Ugly Appear While We're Driving Today" department. But it's a battle.

The truth is, we all have an inner ugly. But the good news is, Jesus loves us anyway. And He can not only tame our inner ugly, He transforms it to inner beauty.

Think about that. When we humbly repent and bring Him our ugly, He takes it away, and fills us with His beauty. If a cup filled with sweet water cannot spill one bitter drop, then we need to ask ourselves: What am I filled with?

When we allow Jesus to fill us, our inner ugly is displaced by His magnificent beauty. Because ultimately, what flows in flows out. Instead of leaking ugly, we'll drip kindness, mercy, compassion, joy, peace, and love.

And that's the kind of leak that never needs to be fixed.

That you may really come to know practically, through experience for yourselves the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge without experience; that you may be filled through all your being unto all the fullness of God, having the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself. (Ephesians 3:19)