A Nun's story

"Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders,  making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person." 

Colossians 4:5-6

I once worked with the loveliest lady who happened to have previously been a nun. Not being a Catholic, my only experience and knowledge of nun's were Julie Andrews from "The Sound of Music" and Audrey Hepburn in "The Nun's Story."  Although I will keep her secret with me until the day I die (simply out of respect), it would not take long to see that she is special. She has an incredible gift of mercy and compassion. She loves others the way I envision a nun would love and honor her church, its people, and the poor. She carries herself like a lady with much grace. Words of encouragement were always coming from her lips.

During my years as a nurse, I developed a few bad habits. Part of it was the environment and part of it was the mere fact that I was grown and finally out from under my parents wing. I was in my 20's and just starting to develop my sense of self and independence. I say that in hopes that others will understand there is the awkward time in your 20's where you are discovering who you are and we will extend grace (yet guide with tenderness and truth) to those during that time. We've all heard of awkward teens, but there can also be an awkward 20's for those of us who were slightly sheltered. For me, I was seeing some pretty intense things (I was a critical care nurse in the beginning of my career) at a young age. 

In order to deal with the pressures of the intense environment I was in, I not only developed a fabulous eating habit of coffee and hospital food, but I also developed the habit of profanity coming from my mouth. Although casual and innocent, it is a part of me that I sort of cringe at now. Not because my mouth is 100% pure at all times now (I'm pretty sure when I dropped my laptop on cement the other day that I muttered something not too pleasant under my breath...ahem), but because I thought it wasn't a big deal. (Remember, I am desperately trying to break free from legalism at this point...at any cost).

One particular day, I found myself talking out of frustration with my coworkers about a particular physician who was very hard to get along with. I am not sure what I said, but I'm sure there a few explicit words that exited my mouth and possibly a bird-flip behind his back.

My dear friend, the former nun, heard me and said something that has stuck with me forever and changed how I spoke with conviction: she said, "Sarah, your mouth is too beautiful and you are too beautiful to have such filth come from your mouth. It is not attractive. You have such a love for Jesus, it just does not exemplify your love for Him when you use profanity." 

I have always remembered that and very quickly changed what came out of my mouth. We are to be examples of Jesus...and I'm sure only beauty came from His lips. That is reason enough. (And really, it is easy to stop once you do it for awhile. You then start to see how ugly it really is when you hear others use profanity. ) There is a difference between being legalistic and holding yourself to a standard that is reflective of Jesus. A legalistic person would simply say "It's just bad. God doesn't like it. He frowns upon you when you do that." But someone who loves Jesus and embraces His grace, chooses to carry themselves in a certain way because we are the only Jesus that some people ever see. If I am saying that Christ lives in me, but am allowing profanity to exit my lips, you can see how this is a contradiction. It has nothing to do with being legalistic.

Whether it is profanity or even a substitute (we Christians love our substitute words...remember when saying oh fudge was so popular?), neither is showing the gentleness, kindness, and grace of Jesus. In essence, His reputation depends on us!

I am so thankful for my nun friend. She forever changed my view as to how I should handle myself in front of non believers. We often conform our ways when we are with nonbelievers. It is ironic that non believers are many times the least judgemental. This partly explains our lackadaisical attitude when amongst them, yet we put on our Jesus hats in front of our believing friends. We are asked to make the most of our opportunity with nonbelievers.  What a great reminder from the beautiful nun to have only words of Jesus' grace and love emerge from our lips.

Let's say goodbye to profanity!