March 26, 2007

Verse of the Day:
“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,” (Philippians 1:29)

What a weekend and what a day...

On Sunday morning I received a phone call from a DearFriend who just had her baby asking me if I was available to make a meal for her new family that evening. So after church I had quite an afternoon...

Well, I had another DearFriend who planned to visit DearDaughter and I today. I normally do my grocery shopping on Mondays, but since today was the only day our schedules matched, I decided to do groceries after church.

From the time we got home from church to the time we needed to leave to deliver this meal, I only had about 4 hours. I had absolutely no food in the house to make dinner for this DearFriend and so I thought it was perfect that I had planned to go grocery shopping. Well, after thinking about the time it would take to have lunch, do groceries, and cook, I decided that I would actually run out of time. So, I decided to get a delish BBQ chicken meal from the corner stand. Now this corner stand makes one of the best BBQ chickens DearHubby and I have ever tasted and it seems like the rest of the town agrees with us too. There were so many people in line at this stand yesterday! When it was my turn, I had a very complicated order. I wanted a whole chicken meal for my DearFriend and a half chicken meal for DearHubby and I. Though it doesn't sound very complicated, apparently it was to the one serving me. To make this story short, there was no menu posted to let any of the customers know the price of anything and since the server was so confused about my order, I'm pretty sure he overcharged me. I don't even want to say what I paid for this BBQ, but it was way too much and I am embarrassed that I even paid this much. Needless to say, I paid a price for wanting to save a little time in making good food.

After lunch I headed to Wal-Mart to do groceries. I normally shop early on Monday mornings and the store is usually not crowded at all. I had no clue that the weekends are a different story and the stress began even from the parking lot. I saw a car pulling out of a spot and drove over to wait for the driver to get out. I was the first and only one waiting and I put my blinker signal on. Another car from the other direction saw the parking spot too and the driver decided to take it. The car pulling out of the spot headed my direction which blocked my opportunity to pull into the spot. I looked at the driver coming from the other direction and I signaled to the driver that it was my spot and I was going to take it. The driver nodded her head "NO" at me and pulled right into the spot. I was quite angry and muttered a curse word under my breath because the driver blatantly took my spot knowing full well that I was there first and had been waiting on it. I angrily shifted in reverse and pulled into another parking space. I had to sit in the car for about 10 minutes just to calm myself down. As I walked towards Wal-Mart I had my keys in my hand. I was greatly tempted to just key the driver's car who took my spot, but I controlled myself and just walked past the car and went into the store.

Shopping was even more stressful as it was very crowded. It was like standing in line just to get anywhere. To add to the traffic jam, the employees were stocking shelves during that peak time and their supplies took up half the aisles. Blessedly I kept DearDaughter at home with DearHubby because I finally just parked my cart and maneuvered my way through the aisles picking up what I needed. What usually takes me about an hour on Monday mornings took me about 2 hours. By the time I got home it was time to head on out to drop off the meal to DearFriend.

We arrived home about 8ish on Sunday evening and put DearDaughter straight to bed. DearHubby and I were quite exhausted so we just rested the rest of the evening.

Since I didn't straighten up the house a little before going to bed, I had a bit of work awaiting me this morning and DearFriend would arrive for our visit at 11am. As I planned out my morning and got out the ingredients for our lunch's soup, I realized that I forgot to get a key ingredient for the soup. That meant I needed to run back out to the store. I decided to straighten out the house, get DearFriend's dinner started, and prepare as much of the soup as possible. (DearFriend's hubby is out of town and since she was driving a long ways to visit us, we thought providing dinner was the least we could do to show our love and appreciation.) If I got everything done by 9am, then that would still leave me enough time to get to the store, finish the soup, and put DearDaughter down for a nap. I was almost done with the soup preparations and about to put DearFriend's roast in the crock pot then head to the store, when something in me told me to check my cell phone. DearFriend had left a message saying that she was sick and couldn't make it. I was disappointed, but I understood.

Why such a detailed account of my weekend/day? Well, in the past I have always excused my bad behavior and attitude by saying, "My sin only goes to show that I am still human and I am not perfect." However, I was really disappointed in myself when I reacted the way I did during that parking lot incident. How was I any different from a non-believer? My heart attitude was just as hard as any other person and I realized that I can easily act godly when things are going well, but when things get hard and stressful and unfair, then I am just as hard hearted as any other person. That's not what God desires. He desires full obedience to his will all the time and the one way to evidence Christ in us is His Spirit at work in us during those hard, stressful, and unfair moments.

Then, on Sunday evening I read through part of the chapter on Love in Martha Peace's The Excellent Wife. The one concept that really convicted me was that you don't repay evil with evil, but you repay evil with a blessing or if possible a reproof. That is the godly way to react when I am wronged. Instead of reacting to my flesh, I should think of how I can still be a blessing to the person wronging me. In the parking lot incident, the difference should have been a different attitude. Though the driver was going to take the spot any which way, I could have just graciously given the spot to her, drove away, and not even get angry or made a big deal out of the situation.

Well, let me tell you, the Lord is really teaching me how to truly find joy and peace in Him alone. He let me experience that stress to reveal to me what my true heart attitude is under stress and wrong doing. He then put me to the test on Monday morning to see if I would fall under the same bad attitude or if I would press on in His will. It truly takes a surrendering of the flesh and a letting go of the flesh to "experience" God's joy and peace. Am I going to hold on to my flesh, get angry, get bitter, get frustrated, and stay that way or am I going to let go of my fleshly reaction and allow the Lord to give me joy and peace and to act with joy and peace? I must express how much more rewarding it is to surrender the flesh than to pridefully hang on to it.

On Sunday evening, as we visited DearFriend and her new family, DearFriend just seemed really stressed and exhausted with the new baby. The baby had been overstimulated from the day's events and just couldn't settle down. I went up to the baby room where DearFriend was trying to calm her Little One and I told her that I'd watch over her while she go down to eat. DearHubby was down there with DearFriend and her husband and later on DearHubby told me that they both really enjoyed the meal we brought to them. What a blessing it was to just be a little help to DearFriend and it turned out that the money we paid for the meal was well spent in the enjoyment of it.

Then, today, since I already had lunch prepared, I decided to call another friend. Her husband had gotten off of work early and so I told her to bring him along too. So I had DearFriend, her husband, and their Little One all over to eat with DearDaughter and I. We had such a blessed time of fellowship which made the food even that much better. They spent several hours just keeping DearDaughter and I company, which made for a wonderfully blessed afternoon!

All that to say that if I hung on to my flesh and brooded in my bad attitude, I would not have been able to "experience" the blessings that I did receive.

I praise God for His faithfulness and though I don't look forward to those stressful and hard times, I am glad that He is allowing me to realize my sinfulness more and more and that He's faithful in providing me with the ability to learn how to flee from from my flesh and to run towards his righteousness more and more and sooner.