Grace

I painted something I didn't mean to last night - our van! {OOPS!} I had pulled into my church office's parking lot just in the nick of time to attend a meeting for nursery volunteers, and I wanted to move the van over just a little bit so I wasn't quite so close to the vehicle on my right. I looked over my shoulder, backed up, and heard a very distinctive metallic crunch. What was that? There was no huge object in my path just a second ago! Turns out the crunch came from me backing into a little red car driven by Sharon, another lady from church who was also attending the meeting. No one was hurt, and there was very minor damage {a small dent in Sharon's back right door}, but I still couldn't believe I had made such a stupid mistake. Laugh now, you people who knew me in high school and rode with me in the Driver's Ed car. And for crying out loud, my husband has backed into both our garage door and our very large garbage can. Why was it me who had to hit someone else's car?!

Turns out there was a lesson in store for me. I gave Sharon my address and phone number, apologized profusely for my mistake, and pleaded with her to contact me about fixing the damage to her little red car. We attended the meeting, and I apologized and pleaded again. I drove home ever so carefully to relay my driving adventure to my husband {not the first driving adventure of mine he's heard or witnessed}, and not more than an hour later the phone rang. It was Sharon, and she told me to forget about the damage. She said she and her husband took a close look at the car and decided it wasn't worth fixing. I told her again that it was, but Sharon insisted that I let it go.

Wow. I just hit someone else's car, and she said, "Forget about it. It's okay." What if we all had that kind of attitude? What if instead of showing anger we gave kindness and pardon? What a demonstration Sharon is of granting grace to someone who needed it. I hope to walk {and drive!} with a little more grace today. Thank you Sharon!

The one thing I didn't mean to paint!

As for the van, well, I'll be trying to unpaint that today.