Impatience

A reader posted a nice comment about the posts I ended up deleting this week. She felt, she said, my heart was pure when I wrote them. My intentions were good. But the posts came off very preachy, very stuffy, and very opinionated. I would like to try the whole thing again some day, maybe for an eBook, but after I can find a gentle, loving way of exploring the whole idea of how I can try to live according to the Ten Commandments. Thank you, my friend, for your gentle comment.

Meanwhile, I had to do a bit of praying today to overcome annoyance and impatience. Our mobile home community is having a craft fair in two weeks. One lady, who will have a one of our tables, asked me for some flyers for tonight. She planned to take them to her bowling team and pass them out. What great local attention, I figured. She wanted to pick them up at a certain time.

My day is very fragmented, very weird, and very busy. I still managed to get 24 flyers done. For half of them, I found nice free clip art graphics in color to sprinkle about the flyer for a holiday buying spirit. I left them in the basket on my porch, as agreed, for her to pick up.

Hours later, they were still there. Finally, I chanced a call. Instead of my taking a "did you forget" plain and simple attitude, I got into a "lay the guilt on her" mood. I ended up leaving a message, when she didn't answer, doing a "fake" apology, saying I must have totally misunderstood the timing and that I would now have to bring them in so that the damp night air wouldn't ruin them. I laid it on thick. I can be good at that, I hate to admit.

She called right back, and apologized for forgetting. She was dealing with the scheduled bowling commitment as well as with her husband's surgery within the past day or so. I was immediately ashamed of myself. I did not have to do that whole routine.

Father, I know I am not the most evil person on earth, but I surely can be a much nicer person, at times of stress, than I was today. Help me, please, to let your grace pour in at those times, instead of resisting and blocking it.