I took the kids to a restaurant this morning for breakfast. And, although I only had 7 of the kids with me the bill was still 60 bucks. Wow...I had decided that I wouldn't let that bother me, after all...if the toaster was in the kitchen somewhere I would have made eggs for them. But, alas...it was no where to be found. So you HAVE to go out for breakfast, right?
I pushed a couple of tables together and we buddied up and grabbed plates at this buffet style breakfast mega food place. I threw my receipt on the table as is customary. I also threw a couple of chocolate milk cartons that I'd grabbed off the buffet bar as we were walking back to our table. We all departed for the rows of goodies. My youngest daughter was with me and she eats like she's nicknamed (Bird) so we were the first ones to head back to the table. When we got there, another large party had decided that we set the tables just perfectly and decided to move in. As we approached my gaze was quickly on the table and our receipt. I mean, if you don't have that receipt you might as well be a shoplifter, right? So, I said some ingeniously clever remark to the waitress that was also there, "Did you just throw our receipt away?". The patriarch of the group was a fairly large in stature man with tattooed tear drops by his eye. With him was his wife, another couple similar in age to the tattooed man, several teenage kids and a young couple with a baby. Yeah, immediate tension.
Here's where the lesson comes in - The bible says that a gentle word turns away wrath...I guess you can imagine what happens next. How I display all the things I've learned from scripture to try to calm the situation. Well, to imagine that would be exactly that, imaginative. It was nothing like that. I was kinda peeved and apparently it was on my shoulder and obvious. The young couple with the baby quickly interjected. "We're sorry sir, we can move". The tattooed man also through in fighting words like, "Oh, we're so sorry, we'll move.".
So, scripture was proven again. Only, I was on the WRONG end of it. I tried to turn my bad attitude to graciousness by letting them stay and saying something like, "no really, not a problem, we'll just sit next to ya'll"...But, IT was out there. My super horrible, bad attitude strikes again.
All through out the breakfast I was praying and wondering how I fix such a mess. I tried to purposely be more of a servant to the kids and get them things like juice and stuff. That wasn't enough. I kept looking over at their table and the Holy Spirit said, "say you're sorry."
Wow, gulp. Ok, so the next ten minutes was spent in silence as I tried to figure out what I'd actually say. As I approached their table, I made eye contact with the tattooed man. He shot out of his seat with his hand extended toward mine and before I could say a word, apologized again. I mumbled some words about how I was sorry...but, it paled in comparison to this mans compassionate heart and spirit. Even as I thought I'd make myself look better with an apology in obedience to God's prompting, God chose to use even that to humble me...Thanks tattooed man. Thanks God.
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