Sunday, August 14, 2005
Missed Opportunity
I realized today how important it is to consciously invite God into every moment. See, when you don't, and then things happen, your first reaction is going to be your natural reaction, and a lot of times you need GOD's response to be the first one or else you'll miss a chance to show God's love to someone else.
Today I missed one such opportunity.
It began this morning when, as usual, I woke up late for church. I had packed everything I'd need for church the night before, but when I went to get my shoes, I put my Sunday school books and things on top of the shoerack and forgot to pick them up again before I left. Unfortunately I didn't realize that I'd forgetten my stuff until after I got to church--10min. late.
Considering that I had actually prepared my Sunday school material ahead of time, it wouldn't have been a problem, except that I had also left behind the form I needed to give the kids for our end of year outing (to Kelsey's). So throughout service I kept looking at my watch, hoping we would end early so I would be able to zip home, come back and still have a couple of minutes to chat with people.
We were actually going pretty fast, but then the announcements seemed to take forever, and I started to get really antsy. Once we were dismissed, I rushed out to the parking lot across the street only to discover that a green car had parked perpendicularly right in front of my car! Since I was in a rush, I felt really really irritated at the inconsiderate driver.
There was actually space for me to squeeze out on my left side if I reversed a bit and then drove onto the sidewalk, so after mentally cursing the stupid driver, I hurried into the car to do just that. While I was reversing my car into the proper angle, this guy came out from the building and started making faces/gestures at me. It was the driver of the green car!
I quickly figured out that he was a worker from the building, and he was mad at me for parking in one of the spaces nearest to the entrance instead of farther down. Remember, I was in a rush to get home and back in time for Sunday school, already frustrated because my hopes that the service would end early were foiled by the seemingly extra long(winded) announcements, and irritated that my car was blocked in, so when this guy came out and started showing his irritation with me, I wasn't inclined to be polite and apologetic. I rolled down my window and snapped "I'm leaving already!" and probably didn't have a particularly conciliatory look on my face at the time.
As soon as I exited the parking lot and started driving, though, I regretted my response. I put myself in the guy's shoes and realized that it must've been incredibly frustrating to have to come in to work on a rainy, gloomy Sunday only to find that the good parking spots were all filled by "those church people." And who knows how often this had happened to him before! I certainly never realized that people were working in that building on weekends before!
What a horrible witness it was for me to not only inconvenience and frustrate him in the first place (albeit unknowingly) but also for me to snap at him when he expressed his frustration to me. The image of a snapping, irate girl from "that church across the street" is definitely NOT the image I would want to leave in the mind of any of our church neighbours.
When I went home I actually wrote a note of apology which I stuck in a Ziplock bag and put under the wiper on his windshield, but even if he accepted my apology in the sincere heart with which I offered it, I'm sure he'll still have that one picture/video of our encounter in the parking lot somewhere in the back of his mind.
God gave me an opportunity to show his love through a polite and apologetic response in this incident, and I blew it.
I realized today how important it is to consciously invite God into every moment. See, when you don't, and then things happen, your first reaction is going to be your natural reaction, and a lot of times you need GOD's response to be the first one or else you'll miss a chance to show God's love to someone else.
Today I missed one such opportunity.
It began this morning when, as usual, I woke up late for church. I had packed everything I'd need for church the night before, but when I went to get my shoes, I put my Sunday school books and things on top of the shoerack and forgot to pick them up again before I left. Unfortunately I didn't realize that I'd forgetten my stuff until after I got to church--10min. late.
Considering that I had actually prepared my Sunday school material ahead of time, it wouldn't have been a problem, except that I had also left behind the form I needed to give the kids for our end of year outing (to Kelsey's). So throughout service I kept looking at my watch, hoping we would end early so I would be able to zip home, come back and still have a couple of minutes to chat with people.
We were actually going pretty fast, but then the announcements seemed to take forever, and I started to get really antsy. Once we were dismissed, I rushed out to the parking lot across the street only to discover that a green car had parked perpendicularly right in front of my car! Since I was in a rush, I felt really really irritated at the inconsiderate driver.
There was actually space for me to squeeze out on my left side if I reversed a bit and then drove onto the sidewalk, so after mentally cursing the stupid driver, I hurried into the car to do just that. While I was reversing my car into the proper angle, this guy came out from the building and started making faces/gestures at me. It was the driver of the green car!
I quickly figured out that he was a worker from the building, and he was mad at me for parking in one of the spaces nearest to the entrance instead of farther down. Remember, I was in a rush to get home and back in time for Sunday school, already frustrated because my hopes that the service would end early were foiled by the seemingly extra long(winded) announcements, and irritated that my car was blocked in, so when this guy came out and started showing his irritation with me, I wasn't inclined to be polite and apologetic. I rolled down my window and snapped "I'm leaving already!" and probably didn't have a particularly conciliatory look on my face at the time.
As soon as I exited the parking lot and started driving, though, I regretted my response. I put myself in the guy's shoes and realized that it must've been incredibly frustrating to have to come in to work on a rainy, gloomy Sunday only to find that the good parking spots were all filled by "those church people." And who knows how often this had happened to him before! I certainly never realized that people were working in that building on weekends before!
What a horrible witness it was for me to not only inconvenience and frustrate him in the first place (albeit unknowingly) but also for me to snap at him when he expressed his frustration to me. The image of a snapping, irate girl from "that church across the street" is definitely NOT the image I would want to leave in the mind of any of our church neighbours.
When I went home I actually wrote a note of apology which I stuck in a Ziplock bag and put under the wiper on his windshield, but even if he accepted my apology in the sincere heart with which I offered it, I'm sure he'll still have that one picture/video of our encounter in the parking lot somewhere in the back of his mind.
God gave me an opportunity to show his love through a polite and apologetic response in this incident, and I blew it.
