In training

I am all about mercy and grace especially in regards to "in training" individuals, however out of an abundance of frustration... I give you....my encounter.

I pulled up to a fast food establishment (I will not mention the name to protect the innocent.) I pulled into a spot to place my on line order, before I even put the vehicle in park there was a knock on my window...thus the child had seen me drive up. I roll down my window and she starts to hand me someone's order. I said I haven't placed my order yet. She continued to try to shove the order at me and said that's fine but you need to take this part of your order. I said that isn't mine she said in a very snotty tone "Are you not Jeff?" (Blank stare) No, no I am not. She walks off. I place my order and begin to wait.

Same child comes out with my order bags of food are fine but the drinks were so full that they had flooded the cup holder that they were in and I got a sticky bath ( not just drips full on looked like she had dumped one of the drinks in the holder just to be spiteful in hind sight maybe she did, but I won't go there that's on her.) I did not take the drinks, she seemed perturbed I said can you maybe wipe those off. (Dramatic eye roll and huff and off she went).

She came back with clean drinks (I'm sure she spit in them) and I said do you have straws? She said they are in the bag. I looked, no straws. At this point I am sure she is done with us. In her defense, I was kind of done with her as well. Obtain straws and off we go.

I want to say this. I was never mean to her or hateful or rude. Most people would have returned the behavior she was handing out with the same if not elevated hateful behavior and then where would that have gone? In training girl would have continued to have a bad day spiraling downward spewing her teen angst all over anyone who placed an on line order that day. All those people would then have in turn gone out in to the world with her angst all over them and spewed it all over the people that they came in to contact with and quite honestly we would have a pandemic of hatefulness and no mask in the world can do anything about that!

One lesson I learned from this is that customer service is not for everyone. I mean everyone should have to do it because maybe the general population would become way more versed in cooperation, but mainly I learned to....

Go out...Be kind!

Life lessons in games.

I have a vivid memory from my childhood.  I was a very active camp participant.  I loved my camp and enjoyed my summers because of it.  I can remember one activity in particular.  The counselors had described what we were supposed to be doing but I had either not been paying attention (likely) or they did not make it clear in order to get their point across (could also be true).  We were to only listen to one person's voice and go to them.  We were all blindfolded and when the game began it was pandemonium of all of the counselors yelling and screaming and making noise calling your name trying to get you to go to them.  I hadn't heard the part about it was a particular counselor that I was supposed to go to so when I got to the voice calling my name they took my blindfold off and said you lose.  Harsh.

Last night I played a game that involves deceiving the other players in order to win.  You are to lie at all cost.  It was unsettling to find out that people I typically trust could lie to my face. (Please understand these are all good people but dang they are good at the in game lying!)

The last round I thought I knew who was lying and who was telling the truth.  I thought that the reason that this person would not look me in the face was that they thought I was lying.  I was trying with all my might to get this player to look at me so that I could convince them that I wasn't lying.  Turns out they were.

These are weird times we are living in.  The enemy is going to use things that you trust and feel comfortable with to distract you from that which God wants for your life.  You do not want to get to the end of your life and have your blindfold removed to realize that the things you had been so adamant about being good and right were in fact...not.

God can use you to be light.  The enemy is going to try to deceive you, make you feel like you are wrong, make others think you are wrong.  Keep being the light.

Go out...Be kind.