Last Saturday, I bought a car off Craig’s List. It didn’t run. I bought it anyway, paid to have it towed to a garage, paid for the mechanic to diagnose the problem – “Needs a new engine… won’t run without one… cost you more to put in a new engine than to buy another used car.”
Ugh! All that money down the drain! Not only was I embarrassed that I had made such a foolish decision, but I was angry with the seller who told me “All it needs is a starter.” He apparently walked away from the sale, thinking, “Sucker with a capital ‘S’.”
Over the next few days, as I made arrangements to donate the car to “Rawhide,” I was feeling pretty despondent. It was hard to make conversation with people, hard to “put a good face on.” I was miserable.
Last night, my son Matt dropped by my house for a friendly visit. “What’s on your mind, Dad?” he asked. At first, I was I was too proud to tell him how I had made a stupid decision and lost a lot of money. But eventually, I told him what was really on my mind.
He was tender and sympathetic. He recounted an incident where a “friend” hood-winked him out of $1600, how difficult it was for him to deal with the injustice. I felt compassion for him. And for the first time in three days, I began to feel the slightest bit of compassion for myself in the pain of the injustice I had suffered.
I wakened this morning with the realization that I’ve done an awful lot of internal work this week, done lots of praying, and that’s a good thing.
“God, help me not to harbor a grudge toward the man who swindled me.”
“God, help me not to focus on what I’ve lost, but on what remains.”
“As much as this hurts, it’s nothing compared to the pain of those suffering in Haiti. Relieve their suffering, dear God.”
“God, thank you that it was I who was bamboozled and not someone else.”
“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:11 – New International Version).
