A Matter of Perspective

I hurried home from work yesterday, gathered my kids from their schools, fixed a meal for a new mama and dropped it off, raced by my mom's for a quick visit, dashed home to cook a decent dinner for my own family, then got ready to go to an important meeting at my son's school.

I am out of breath just typing this.

I waited for a friend to drop off her child to babysit mine. And waited some more. Finally, I texted her and got no reply. Quickly calling the neighbor kid over, I bought myself an interim sitter and left for the PTO meeting.

And found the door to the school locked. I checked in with the custodian and he said the meeting was on his calendar for today, not last night. I brought up the email on my phone and confirmed that nope, it was supposed to be happening right now. Since I was the only one there for the meeting, I assumed there was some sort of miscommunication.

Ultimately, my friend sincerely apologized for forgetting me in the midst of her own chaos of shuttling kids to various locations. The person in charge of the meeting felt awful for forgetting to tell me the date had changed due to her work schedule.

Technically, I would have been justified indulging in a little self-righteous snarkiness, don't'cha think?

Instead, I was able to see it as an opportunity to offer grace to two people. What are the odds that two things would get hosed up on the same night? I felt like it was too big a coincidence to spend time playing the victim. I also looked at it as evidence of God's mercy towards me. In a busy week, I got to spend an evening at home playing games with my kids.

Sometimes, everything is just a matter of perspective. If we could learn to view the events in our lives as opportunities to serve and glorify God instead of ourselves, this world would be a much better place.