Sowing Blessings

Yesterday was spent dealing with one aggravation after another. I started the day with a stop at our automotive service provider to have our car mechanically inspected before our projected trip to the Maritimes next weekend. I arrived there at 8:30 AM. After a wait of about half an hour, the service agent came to me with a rather long list of repairs that were needed and a quote on the hefty cost they entailed. He said that the repairs would take two hours.

I went for a long walk and came back forty minutes later and settled down to read an eBook while I waited. At 12:00, the service agent told me that the repairs would take an additional hour. I left on foot to look for a restaurant to buy lunch.

There was a KFC not too far away. I entered and ordered. I was the only customer in the restaurant. I patiently waited for my meal as new customers entered and ordered. When, fifteen minutes later, my meal had still not arrived, I asked why. The young cashier, who was obviously new, could not find my bill and realized that my meal had never been ordered. Another wait until it finally got done.

After eating I went back to the garage to resume my patient vigil. One o’clock came and passed. At 1:30 I asked the service agent to check when the car would finally be ready. An additional twenty minutes was the response. By then my patience was wearing very thin, but still, I waited… until 2:30. When I got the bill, I saw that it was several hundred dollars above the initial quote. I asked to see the manager who apologized for my having to wait so long and he checked into the discrepancy on the bill. The service agent contradicted me and told him that his initial quote was a few dollars above the amount on the final bill. The manager assumed I was simply trying to get a discount and dismissively “managed” me, sending me on my way with his calling card attached to my bill, as if that made up for the poor service, I had received.

When I got home, Diane told me that our credit card statement contained amounts larger than the ones that we expected for a service contracted a few weeks earlier. I called the company to find out that the prices quoted at the time of the transaction were in US funds. The agent I had spoken to then had neglected to tell me that. I was transferred to the accounting department and waited, listening to elevator music for another ten minutes, until someone in talked to me and I could settle the matter.

When I finally managed to calm down, I did what I often try to do when people hurt me or are a source of frustration. I prayed for the service agent, the mechanic and the manager. I prayed for the young lady who did not know what she was doing at the KFC and the rest of the staff there. I prayed for the American gentleman who thought that all currencies were in US Funds.

In the last few days, my thoughts and my prayer have centered on one thing: God is present and acting in all situations, whether these be happy or sad, easy or difficult, gratifying or painful. When I sat down to pray last night, I could not help but ask, “Lord, how were you present and acting in all this aggravation today?” The answer I got was, “You prayed for them, didn’t you? All those aggravations allowed me to sow blessings on a lot of people.”