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Priceless Kind of Day

Today began normal enough. I usually experience favor, but today's favor was different. I awoke with a song whose title I didn't know ringing in my mind. War, war, war this life is a ... Carousel? Battleground? Soon I had the song playing and the full lyrics stirred me greatly. They were just another reminder that everyday there is work to be done. Everyday I have to insist on dying so that Christ can live through me. This life is a battlefield.

While I was having my musical moment, I saw my bus coming but I didn't have the light. I trusted God that I didn't have to "bend" the rules for his favor, and as I saw the bus roll by I continued to trust. Today I was determined to make it to work on time. God is teaching me about honoring people, including my employers. I hadn't even made it to the bus stop when the express version of the previous bus pulled up. I jumped on with a broad smile on my face and said, "I didn't even know you ran this late!" "I don't normally but
I'm running late" was the surly reply. Just for me. :)


Then a song I had only heard once before came to mind. It's like an anthem for me, although the song itself is new for me. I don't have to be on the foreign mission field to be at work as God's messenger. I just have to be present and willing to humble myself. So the humility test came later in the day.

I was at work so early I had time to continue to spend with God. It felt good to clock in at the start time and to leisurely prep the restaurant with no fear of unfinished tasks coming back to bite me later in the shift.

Some days the restaurant is slow. Sometimes it's busy. Today was a day in which my section was busy, but God gave me great favor. My customers ordered drinks, breads, and dessert. And then it happened.

I've never just straight out broken anything at the restaurant. Something in the wrong place or too much pressure on the rack? Yes, I've broken things that way. Three total since August. Today the new guy broke a whole rack of dishes. I expected WW III to break out. It was bad. One boss was hounding me about some customers who grew tired of waiting for their dessert. She said the cost of the dessert would have to come from me. (Mind you I place the dessert order but I don't make it and my section was full.)
Right after this I take a tray of yellow yogurty drinks to one of my tables. It was a tight space. Two drinks given and then BAM! Other two on the floor, on the customers, on me. Restaurant went silent. And me? I went to work. Cleaned the customers up, the floor, their bags, and got the replacement drinks. Then I tended to my freshly washed now thoroughly soiled work outfit and I kept it moving.

My male boss tried to find something- but the floor looked decent. He asked if there would be a dry cleaning bill BUT the favor of The Lord was that the drinks went on me primarily, and barely on the customers. And the table who the drinks belonged to, left over $20 in tip when they left. So I said to my female boss that, that should cover the wasted drinks. And she said, "what drinks?" I told her that if she didn't remember, I wasn't bringing it up. Favor again.

Near the end of the shift I went to escort a legally blind woman in a motorized wheel chair out of the back of our restaurant. As she navigated a divider fell over. She felt so bad BUT God sent me through all of what happened earlier to lovingly remind her that we all have different gifts to help each other with.

God has it under control. All that's necessary from us is Micah 6:8, the scripture I saw hanging from a building as I walked to work. And that fear of failure that would have had me wracking my brain to figure out how I made such a clumsy mistake, is on hiatus. Hopefully permanently. The mistakes I make don't define my worth. Christ already determined that before the world was formed. I'm priceless.






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