Lunch with a friend

Today I had lunch with one of my friends here in Charleston.  He is really a cool friend; I have known and worked with him since we moved here.  He is one of my friends that truly have amazed me in my transition.   He has never questioned or even asked about the changes that have happened he has just accepted me for who I am.   For lunch I ordered a baked potato with chili on it.  We sat down and were catching up on each other’s work.  I all of a sudden thought did I order that with veggie chili?  I wasn’t sure, but that’s what I normally order.  All these thoughts came to me, if it has meat in it will I eat it, should I go check the order to see, dang I really don’t want to make a scene….  All of a sudden the potato showed up, it did have the chili with meat in it.  So I had to make the choice of eating it or not.  Do I want to go against my conviction of being a vegetarian? I sure really didn’t want to make a scene and redo my order because the restaurant was getting very busy.   My thought was oh I can eat that,  it won’t be so bad.  It was really good to eat, but in the end I really paid for it.  Not only did my stomach hurt for a few hours but I was also very disappointed in my choice as well.

In thinking about this choice it really does parallel my Christian walk.  We all face small sins or choices that come into our lives each day.  We have to make a choice of what to do with them and either follow our convictions or give in.  It’s that choice of how we handle things that gives us the great pains in life, we all fall short from time to time.   Whether it telling a little white lie or falling off the diet and eating that candy bar calling your name or in my case eating some meat today.   In growing as a Christian part of it is learning from our past sins, so that we can better handle situations in the future.