Not ALL my mornings are this crazy, but here's a peek at what has happened so far today:
While I was getting ready to leave home at 8:35 am, my friend P called from BUSH Airport preparing to board a 10:25 flight out of the country. She said she didn't have her passport, it was still somewhere in her house back in the Sugar Land area, and could I help her? Sure! I zipped out the door and headed to her house, making phone calls along the way (canceling a lunch appointment, finding a sub for my morning preschool group, arranging a supplemental activity for the sub, notifying the church office of my whereabouts). I used P's back door code to get into her house, then began the needle-in-a-haystack search for the passport, with P directing me. Found it! (Stopped by her frig to get a quick snack.)
Locked the house back up, headed to the airport. No time to buy gas -- would I make it? By now, 9:00. P called to say the passport had to be in hand by 9:25 or no go. Pppffffttt, I say. I will be there at 9:45. Keep asking for someone to say "yes," and I will keep driving. 9:30, P officially past last possible check in. Gas light on. Driving, driving. Pull up to the terminal door at - yep - exactly 9:45. Fling passport to P, keep driving. Notice gas light glowing bright. Find Valero a short distance away. Car inhales $75 of gas with one gulp. Where is debit card? Whew!
OK, breathe .... at this point, there is nothing more to do for P, except pray for those who will be listening to her plea. What I CAN do is be thankful for my many other trips to the international terminals at Bush, so I know exactly how to help in a situation like this. I am also thankful for others who can be flexible and help cover for me -- we are all together in helping our friend! I am thankful for money to buy gasoline. I am thankful for a cell phone, which P could use to ask for help, and which I could use to assist her. I am thankful for each person that I talked to on that phone this morning, and for the information and encouragement they offered on the drive up and back. And I am thankful for the text that came in at 10:12, saying P was on the plane, and all is well, and that God is so good.
God IS good. That's not because things go our way, of course. He would have been good even if P had missed the plane. He is good because, well, just because he is good! Saying "God is good" is redundant. It doesn't mean that we have held God against some objective external standard, and in our opinion he measures up. Instead, it means that God is the very definition of goodness. If he does something that is uncomfortable, painful, inconvenient, costly, or embarrassing for us, that does not mean he is not good! It may, however, mean that we need to adjust our understanding of "goodness" to more completely see life from his point of view. As we are "transformed by the renewing of our minds," we will increasingly know true goodness as characterized by every single thing that comes to us from the hand of our gracious, personal God.
No comments:
Post a Comment