Forty years ago, an elder at the church where I received my early training in the ministry called me an “unprintable name” based on a poor choice I was making. He was frustrated with me at the time. Even though I agree with him now, I didn’t then, and went into an elaborate defense of myself in my own mind, instead of stopping to consider what was there to be learned. And then there were all the unflattering thoughts I had about him that followed, designed to make me not look so bad to myself.

To my detriment, I turned my back on him and passed on the value of what he had to say. For years, there was no relationship between Ed and me, and no lesson was learned. The unrestored relationship left me with me, myself, and I, and never what he said or why.

I have relived that conversation many times (you don’t soon forget being called an “unprintable name”), and as many times as I have, I have found excuses for why I did not heed Ed’s warning words. I will say to myself that I am sorry, and I wish I had not turned from him or what was in his message. I will anguish over it, and I am very good at throwing myself on the sword of regret. But regret turns to despair, which intimidates me, and turns me away from love. These feelings of inadequacy isolate me, making me afraid to venture out toward restoration.

These feelings also cause my ego to present to you my successes while hiding from sight my failures. That is until my illusions of self-grandeur shatter like a rock through a glass window when I see the extreme pain I have inflicted on those who mean the most to me. And I find myself lower than I thought low could go. In a moment of self-inflicted clarity, I become disgusted by my self-righteousness, with all of its games played to my favor in my head. And all of this is still just between me, myself, and I.

Paul called himself the worst of sinners. Paul, a sinner? Yes, of course, he was a bloody sinner before his conversation. But through his life of service to the Lord and his drive to make right what had gone wrong, I hardly would call him a sinner, except that he used the present tense when he said this. I “am” the worst of sinners,  he said, not I “was.” That’s when I finally join him and see myself from his perspective, which is very low, as every sinner knows. From this place, I reach up to those who have fallen, through failure and missed opportunities; I can touch their hearts with empathy, and easily accept them, and love them as they are.

Ed called out my failure. Unfortunately my ego heard him and resisted, but my heart did not. Ed was offering my mistakes and missed opportunities as a means of grace and great blessing if I accepted them as part of my call, a lowly sinner in great need of a savior.

Ed was right to call me out with an “unprintable name,” and had I stopped long enough to hear him with my heart and not just my ego, I could have saved the one I love from a lot of harm over the years. Indeed, in accepting my failure today, I am admitting to myself that I am inadequate, but with God’s strength being made perfect in this weakness of mine with grace, I can receive this grace and turn it out to others, and to do so with greater compassion, sensitivity, wisdom, and understanding.

After all of these years, I went to call Ed, but would you believe he called me first. That’s an example of God’s grace for us all, and what can happen when we receive His grace and turn it outward to others.

This is when being an “unprintable name” isn’t so bad after all, because of what you gain in the process.