With big changes comes a lot of stress.
And with a lot of stress comes the very end of my patience.
Soooo... I've been thinking about this a LOT as of late. The concept of grace.
Especially when people call with really dumb questions, that take an hour just for them to spit out.
(Whoever said "there are no dumb questions" never had to tell a father that the date for him to drop his kid off at ONLINE college is never. Ever. With a straight face.)
I want so badly to give in to the part of me that would very much like to be rude. And merciless. In moments like that.
I want to respond sarcastically, with superiority... But then I think back to when I asked a waiter how large the 14" pizza was. And I'm reminded of my need to eat humble pie. (I'll take humble pizza pie if you're giving me the option.)
It's really easy to look on other people's stupidity and think that we're much better off. In fact, I did this while driving through Sonic just today.
There is a bold, red stop sign near the drive-thru WARNING customers that the numbers of the combos have changed. (My husband's voice played like a cassette tape in my mind as I drove past. "What a bunch of stupid idiots," he'd say.)
You don't purchase a sign until you've had complaints, you see. So that means, somewhere along the way, a poor carhop, on wobbly roller skates, had to deal with this...
"This isn't the number two I ordered." (hehe, number two)
Are we that lazy? And stupid, that we don't use pictures to order anymore? We rely solely on the numbers, preferably ones with very few syllables, since they're easier to say?
I felt completely self-righteous driving off with exactly what I had ordered (without the reliance on numbers, no less). That is, until I hit a corner a little too sharply, while looking down at my phone I might add.
It was then that not one but TWO of my drinks flew from the cup holders onto the floor.
They sounded like an ocean wave crashing onto my Jeep Cherokee at that moment. A flood of sticky Coca Cola products and that signature Sonic ice, instantly melding into my already disastrous floorboard.
Do I have the worst luck with drive-thrus? Or am I just really slow to learn?
I suspect it's the latter.
I think moments like the Coke Crisis remind me what I'm reluctant to hear over the buzz of the phone ringing for the 900th time at work... that dads with dumb questions aren't the only ones who need grace.
We all need grace. All the time.
But we especially need grace in those really tough moments.
The moments we're tempted to cry over spilt Coke. Or tempted to mock someone else for sending an email about applying to online "collage."
The times when we feel the worst - or want to be the rudest - are when we need grace the most.
And we don't just need a drop of grace. We don't just need a little spill - the kind that makes it look like you peed your pants.
We need a WAVE of grace to rush over us like those Cokes spewing onto my car.
We need grace that totally wrecks us. Changes us. Destroys who we once were.
Thankfully, when it comes to my car, the Jeep has not seen better days since about 1990, so I wasn't too worried about clean up.
Yes, my car will smell like vanilla Coke, and yes the passenger side will be sticky.
But I can think of much more pressing things than worrying about that.
In fact, until I can securely shut the driver's side door AND replace the lug nut (that my husband seems to think is important) I probably won't be bothering with little things like vacuuming the floor.
Until I do, though, the goop can serve as a tangible reminder that I need Grace.
I need to be so filled up with it, and so overwhelmed by it, that it sticks to everything I say and do.
That way, when I'm tempted to say "stu..." I can stop myself and Breathe Grace instead.
Yes; breathe grace. Breathe GRACE...
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