A lesson in Humility on New Years Eve

Yesterday, was a pretty awful day.  One of those days that everything was just "off", you know?  Have you had one lately?   But that is completely beside the point now.

Today started differently,  quietly, peacefully, only one minor crisis before church.  That taken care of and I was only 15 minutes late.  What a wonderful time we had in Bible Study,  Church service and sermon were wonderful and thought provoking.  A trip to Walmart was next that proved a little Iffy, if you know what I mean.  Next, a quick trip to Las Cruces to deliver something that belonged to someone else, a quick stop at my aunt and uncles house to wish them Happy New Year and the road home for the evening.

Not that any of this really matters to the important part of my story, but here it is..... We decided that French toast sounded pretty wonderful so IHop it was.  Dinner started out by ordering brioche French toast that they were out of, and having to go check and see if they still had any of the cheesecake stuffed French Toast left as their new promotion starts tomorrow.  Our waiter came back, told me I could get my order of the cheesecake and that they could make the bananas foster French toast out of regular French toast.... Life was good again.  Then he came back again and told us that the Owner had found some brioche so the other two were getting their first order as well.  Our food came, we ate, it was good.....
THEN.........A young man who was sitting alone stood up and came over to our table.  He asked if we were out for the New Year and were we doing anything else this evening or was "this" it.  We assured him that from here we were calling it a night and going home.  He then begins to tell us that he wants to end his year on a good note and do something nice.  He wanted to know if it would be all right with us if he paid for our dinner.  Stop action..........


What do you do in a moment like that?  How do you respond?  We were perfectly capable of paying for our own meal.  He is obviously an airman sitting alone on a holiday evening, shouldn't WE be paying for HIS meal?   Is he up for adoption?  But then, a little voice somewhere says, he wants to do this.  Don't take his blessing away from him.  Ok, I wont, but looking up at this young man and telling him we would be honored if he paid for our meal was probably one of the harder things I have done lately.  It some how took a whole LOT of humility to say what I said.   I knew it was the right thing to do but wow..... After we got in the car and were on our way home, and we were talking about it, we all three agreed that having never had something like that happen before none of us were sure how to react in the moment.

Start action.........
Before we got home, I can tell you that I shed a few quiet tears over the whole episode.

So with this story being told, How do I see the end of 2017?  A lesson in blessing others through small acts.  A lesson in humility to give someone else the opportunity to be a blessing and receive a blessing... A lesson in taking a moment to see the world around you in a different way if just for a moment.

So how will I start out 2018?  Looking for the moment God wants to use ME to pay that small act of kindness forward as I promised that young man I would.  Looking for the moment that someone else might be able to see God IN me.  In 2018, may there be less of ME in the way so that there can be more of GOD!!!!!!

Inside my head

So, today was just another day for me.  It was Monday, started out running a little late, as usual, and was worried that the appointment I had was going to be there waiting on me.  Got to work, my contractor drove up to give me the invoice on the project he was working on for me and explain what had been done to this point and when the rest would be done.  I was excited that this was getting on a roll finally. 

Answered the phone to find out the appointment I had was running later than I was so it gave me about 2 hours to get other things going.  Took care of a couple errands I needed someone else to run for me and got that person dispatched.  Got another employee dispatched to finish repacking a trailer that is part of our fire equipment.  Scrubbed a 100 foot hose.  Checked out how much progress my hubby was making on our mechanic shop area, which was a LOT of work!!!!!

Appointment showed up to do the training for us for our newest endeavor,  worked in a very hot room a our swamp cooler doesn't work very well and the temp was over 100 degrees outside.  Part of our training also had to take place outside in the sun.  Answered the phone to take orders for the trucking business.   First customer was late showing up to pick up his equipment so we had to wait till after the store actually closed and we should have been on the way home.  But we got through doing the paperwork all on our own with out our trainer to help us.  (which incidentally was something that made me very proud to get through since I panicked completely at the beginning and couldn't remember a THING we were supposed to do. 

In the middle of this I have answered any number of phone calls from my family asking questions of how to cook things for their dinners from Fort Worth to Las Cruces NM and here in town as well.

Then we went home.  Hubby decided to take me out to dinner to cool off and we left all the kids here to eat the dinner they had cooked.  Came back home and sat down to talk to the not kids... the young adults that we are working with to make the leap into true adulthood. 

Suddenly, almost in the middle of the conversation, I realize that what to me  everything that has gone on all day is just another day, just part of the job as it were. But it has become overwhelming to literally everyone else that had been in our circle and suddenly, here I am, sitting all alone.  They have all had to go somewhere else to regroup and I don't know, unwind?
I'm really not sure what it is about me and my world that makes others run and hide.   And if I could figure it out, Im not sure I could stop doing it.  I guess that's part of the reason I have pretty much always been "a loner".  Other people can only take so much.