If you are a Twitter user then odds are you’ve seen the trend #thatawkwardmoment a lot. Here are a few of my favorites:
#thatawkwardmoment when you start to tell someone a story like it’s your own and then realize that they’re the one who told you the story in the first place
#thatawkwardmoment when you ignore someone’s call on your cell phone and then discover that they are actually stopped at the red light right next to you
#thatawkwardmoment when your dog walks in on you while you’re using the bathroom and he just sits and stares at you
#thatawkwardmoment when you think you see someone you know and you wave and yell their name really loudly in order to get their attention, but then you realize that it’s not them at all
#thatawkwardmoment when you realize after the email has already been sent that you accidentally clicked “REPLY TO ALL”
And the list could go on and on.
If you know me personally, you know that I tend to struggle with being a bit of a perfectionist, so awkward moments really make me uncomfortable. Frankly, they down-right irritate me. For instance, the other day at work I went to punch the alarm code into the keypad and my mind went completely blank. I punch that code into the alarm system every single day of the week and somehow in that moment I forgot what the code was. So, as I stood in the building with the alarm going off, I had to call my friend and co-worker, Chad, and ask him to give me the code so that I could disarm the system. I was humiliated in #thatawkwardmoment.
Later, Chad and I had a good laugh at my 40 year-old brain-fart. It was a great reminder that I’m only human and quite far from the illusion of perfection which plagues me.Life is full of awkward moments-they serve to remind us that we are merely human. But here’s the most important thing that I’ve learned about awkward moments-they keep us REAL.
One of our core values at New Song Church is being REAL. We place a high priority on maintaining authenticity in all of our relationships because after all, God knows who we are at our core being, so why pretend to be something that we’re not. And frankly, the last thing that the world needs is another church full of plastic people who pretend to be one way on Sunday and live a completely different way Monday through Saturday.
Embrace the awkward moments in life because they keep you REAL. Lighten up a bit and don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself, because you never know when you’re going to be right in the middle of a picture-perfect romantic moment when you lean in to embrace and kiss that someone special, and then you accidentally pass gas. And yes, I know the person to whom that actually happened 🙂 #thatawkwardmoment.