Have you ever wondered why it is that we promise to be better, or act better, or behave differently when we seem to have come to the end of the line? LITERALLY....Have you ever been so scared that you start asking God to help you? I work with a very wonderful lady (her name is Esen) who is as strong as an ox. Sometimes she is as stubborn as one too but I love her just the same. You could never (nor could she) imagine that she would ever be in a weakened state. We never seem to be able to see ourselves as being incapacitated. That is until we come down with a flu that knocks our socks off and we are like weak little kittens that can't hold up our heads. Or we have a disease that is life threatening or our children come down with some very serious illness.....
Well, Esen told me that yesterday, at the end of her shift, she began to feel sick. She explained that she was telling herself to just keep on working and she would make it until the end of her shift. She gets her words mixed up sometimes, (that is when she is most adorable to me), and as she was explaining, she said she was trying to 'patience' (hold on) long enough to finish out the night. She finally was hurting so horribly that she had to succumb and leave early. And if you knew Esen, you would know that she had to be close to dying to leave work early! When she got to her parking space in the parking lot, someone had backed into her car and the bumper was hanging on the ground. You know "Murphys' Law".....anywho......she pulled it the rest of the way off and shoved it in the back seat of her car and slammed the door (all the while asking God, "WHY NOW???")....Then the door wouldn't shut right because the bumper was too long....She finally finagled with it and the door did eventually shut. The whole time, she was telling herself that she must just focus and drive carefully and get to her apartment before she died. She truly thought she was going to die.
She made it to her apartment and the owner of our workplace called her to ask how she was feeling. She weakly told her, "I'm dying...I'm dying....I'm dying." Of course our boss quickly went to her aid and when she arrived at Esens' apartment, she went in to see if she could help. The pain seemed to be radiating from my friends' back and our boss thought she must have strained it and gave her some muscle relaxers and strong pain pills. Our boss had stopped at an all night drug store on the way to rescuing our friend and got some heat pad thingys and other meds she could think of that she may need. My friend said that our boss literally got into bed with her and rubbed her back for her and after about 15 minutes, Esen drifted off into a very deep sleep. But as she was drifting....she was making a deal with God. She told me that she was promising everything she could think of in exchange for God allowing her to live.
She promised that she would be a very good girl from now on and that if she had done anything to make God angry, that she was sorry beyond words and she would never do it again (even though she didn't even know what it was that she had done.....) She promised to be very nice to everyone from now on and not judge anyone anymore,and not to talk about anyone unkindly anymore, and to only to do very nice things from now on.............but please God, let me live, she begged.
The point Gommy is making is that we all go along our merry ways most of the time and it is not until something terrible happens or we become ill that we turn to God for help. My friend is not unlike most of us in that regard. But Gommy was thinking how nice it would be if we could all get a little 'wake-up' call on a regular basis that would self-correct our attitudes, behavior, stubbornness, etc., to make us realize we were going down the wrong path and that our behavior or attitude or failure to be more forgiving could make it harder to bargain if the time did arise that we needed to do some swapping with the Almighty. There may just be a time that we have gone over the line for any kind of bartering to exchange. We may not have anything left to barter with....God may just be fed up with giving us more chances after more chances.....Lord knows we push Him to the limit all the time....Kinda' scary isn't it???
Esen told me that she did wake up the next morning and when she opened her eyes, she touched herself to see if she was indeed alive.....Yesssss, I am alive, she thought. Then she was afraid to move in the bed. What if the pain was still there? She gingerly moved and voila' - no pain...only a little tenderness. But Gommy thinks the tenderness was a little of the leftover pain to remind her of what she had promised....Gommy has to admit that she was much more cheerful than usual and her attitude seemed to be one of happy gratitude and she appeared to love everyone. Gommy told her that she 'belonged' to our boss from now on because of some hokey-pokey deal she had made and from here on out, she owed her life to our boss.....Gommy was just joshing with her but I think she believed me...All she keeps saying is "Thanks God.....Thanks God......Thanks God.... I don't mind".
The moral of this little story is that we can all use a little reality check on how we are behaving. Some of us are a bit arrogant....some of us are a bit selfish....some of us are a bit (o.k. alot) bossy......you get the picture, don't you? So don't wait until something drastic happens to you before you snap out of it....Try to temper those nasty traits right now and take a good hard look in the mirror. Like what you see? Gommy bets there are a few things that could use a quick fix.....because none of us are perfect.....right?
We never do know when our 'last train to nowhere' is coming for us....sooooooo, you better have your 'bags' packed with everything you will need for wherever it is you are going......Woo-Woo!!!! and Bon Vonage.......Hugs, & Mush, Gommy ((*>*))
