Dios Mio

even as I sit down to write this blog I am truly humbled. God has done it again. He's messed me up..but I mean in a good way. I had the privledge of seeing my wifeget baptized this past week and my gosh was it incredible. I have seen an amazing amount of spiritual growth in her of the past few months...which is what she would tellyou about herself. Anyway, the spirit of God fell on that church during her baptism and it was one of the most intense spiritual experiences I have ever had...I'm still sayingto myself, "What actually happened?" I don't think I could explain it natural terms. A mind-numbing peace followed by tears, Holy Spirit tears...the big hot kind that won't seem 2 stop.
Ok, I say all that 2 tell u I was on a "spiritual high." I was feeling real good about how in touch with God I was or thought I was and then entered Moses...not the Biblical Moses but more on that later. I have been in the middle of having my house renovated. The foundation was cracking and sinking into the ground...note to the people who built my house,"never build your house on sediment..or sand" but enough of my preaching! Anyonewho has ever done the smallest amount of remodeling knows it always takes longerthan what you originally projected it would take and it costs more $$$ than U thought itwould. All this adds up to extra stress. We were fortunate in that we had a placeto stay FOR FREE the entire time this renovation was going on...my wife's parents! Theywere very accomodating but when you're not at your own home it's just never quite as easy 2 relax.
Well, after shimming the house with the help of my good buddy Zack and re-pouring the concrete to make the floors even we had to wait a couple of weeks to put in the carpet...I thought all this was gonna take place in 1 weekend..boy was I wrong.A couple of weeks went buy as we tried 2 find the best deal on carpet and we finally foundthe right one. That took another week for it to come in and the day had finally arrived forthe installers to come and put the carpet. The store made us feel at ease confirming thatthe installers would be arriving at our house somewhere between 10-1 on a Monday as I recall.
Well, Monday at 10am arrives..nothing. No phone calls, no carpet guys...whathappened? So I call the guy where I bought the carpet and he assures me everything isalright and that the installers just got started a little late but that they were on their way AAAAARRRRGGGHHH..this is not what I wanted to hear on a Monday. I was looking forward to getting back into my house and getting to sleep in my own bed after 3 weeksbut it looked as if today that wasn't gonna happen.About 10:50 I get a call from an un-identified number. I pick up and say "Hello" and on theother end is someone who speaks NO ENGLISH...well, very little anyway. The voice on the other end of the phone is someone slurring spanish and english together and all I could make out was "you house"and "very confusing"..at least I think that's what they said .Now, to their credit..if u have never been to my house before it can be confusing. It is definately in the country. It's the kind of house you really don't wanna ask mapquest how to get here cuz it will mess u up. Ok, now I am extremely frustrated. Not only is the carpet installer late, he is only 1 guy AND he's lost...and he can't even ask me or understand how 2 get here...ahhhh, dios mio.After about 10 minutes of me trying 2 explain(at ever increasing volumes) how to get tomy house I could see it was going nowhere. I talked louder and slower but he still didn'tget it. So I tried 2 see if he knew where Wal Mart was...cuz everyone knows where Wal Martis, right? I said "GO TO WAL MART", "I WILL MEET YOU THERE"...I have a black car..I said"UN COCHE NEGRO"..he snickered and I think he said "WHITE VAN". So best I could tellat this point the guy was gonna meet me at Wal Mart about 10 mins from my house andhe was gonna be in a white van.
I get in the car and needless to say this added to the stress I already had...this was not part of my plan. I called my wife and told her about the whole ordeal and she seemed to sympathize but I told her was gonna callthe place where we bought the carpet and give them a piece of my mind...I was gonna tell them how to run a good business. I got off the the phone and God spoke to my heartI realized that just because I knew the English language didn't give me the right to be frustratedwith someone who didn't. I think this is what we do as Christians some time. Just because we get it(only because God revealed it to is) that we think we can make other people get it.That the louder we talk and the more fancy words we use the better people will "get it".Not the case according to Moses(the carpet guy). No matter how loudly I spoke to him he wasn't gonna find my house, no matter how frustrated I got..it didn't help..so what happened..God showed me we must meet people where they are. I found some common ground with Moses. I met him at Wal Mart...why Wal Mart? Cuz it was some place hewas familiar with and could easily get there. Moses and I didn't talk much(cuz I knewit was pointless) but I just said "Follow Me"and he said "ok"!
All that yelling and and stress just to find some common ground. Well Moses turned out to be an incredible carpet guy and despite the language barrier we shared a few laughs..mostly him laughing at my Spanish I think..nevertheless...God showed me some important lessons that day that I hope I never forget...1.)Louder is not necessarily better 2.)Meet people where they are. Forgive me Lord for thinking I ever "got it"!....oh and maybe a 3rd lesson would be..don't always trust mapquest!