Everyone here should hear this from me. You have graciously looked to me as a knight, or at least someone who genuinely tries to be, so when I screw that whole thing up, I should confess it.
The Lord has greatly humbled me today.
There I was for most of the day, laughing along with everyone else about two certain people on other crews in the lab and how they've messed up a lot of things, whether by being unsafe in their work or just unfocused and ended up making a major blunder. Oh, I was telling my own stories about them, too, not just playing along with the others'. It was gossip, pure and simple. And worse, who am I to talk about the lack of safety and awareness and all on these two's part if I myself have cut corners before? And sure enough, later on that shift, as I am making up a solution I lose my focus and completely spill a good 100 to 200 mls of nitric acid everywhere, a fraction of it hitting my sleeve and burning my wrist. I was wearing protective gloves - that much I always do - but not the particular kind for the specific purpose of transferring larger quantities of concentrated acid, as they are elongated to protect the forearms as well as the hands. Thus, my wrist got drenched. It is a minor burn, and I did at least take the measures to mitigate the effects right away, and
thank the Lord Nel wasn't there today to find out; that would have been a huge mark on my personnel file .... like, the kind Agent Mulder from
The X-Files probably racked up quite a few of by the end of his career as an FBI agent

, but nevertheless, through a combination of lack of the proper
full protective attire and a clumsy moment, I screwed up. And considering I had been berating some folk behind their back all day beforehand for this very type of mistake, I think it served me right. Even without getting into trouble with any superiors or anything, it was a humiliating experience but one that I can only imagine the Lord allowed to occur for the sake of chastising me for my very
un-knightly pride earlier.
Offhand I do not know the book and chapter, but I know there is at least one verse somewhere in Scripture admonishing us not to despise the chastening of the Lord, for He does so to those He loves. I noticed something in my experience today; I feel humiliated by my mistake, but it is not the same kind of humiliating scene the Lord allowed to or Himself brought upon me as, say, the kind of humiliation that a school bully or some other human opponent might bring upon you. I felt the Lord's gentle rebuke and genuine admonishment through my humiliation; it was harsh, but He delighted not in bringing it upon me as a bully or other personal enemy would have, no. Instead, He genuinely wanted me to learn and do better from this. He truly wished for my personal own good. That is why it called only admonishment or chastisement when it comes from Him; not a personal hatred or wish to harm.

Please pray that I will remember this lesson and act better in all ways from here on while in my work environment, even if I might ever be tempted or even pressured into behaving in a reverse way.