Surprised! That was the feeling Chase had after a long day of delayed travel. A rain delay in Atlanta (imagine that :) had caused Chase to miss a connecting flight to Boston. When he finally arrived in Boston, his luggage did not. Chase's luggage decided to party with another piece of samsonite luggage headed for sunny Key West, Florida- woo hoo. So, after standing in line for 30 minutes to file a lost luggage claim with the personality-free gate agent, Chase was finally settling into his seat on a crowded Amtrak train headed to Providence.
All Chase wanted to do was sit in silence and lament over his horrible, no good, day. His pity party had just begun when the surprise occurred. Sitting next to Chase on the train was an elderly lady with a personality the size of Texas named Ms. Mary. She took one look at Chase's sullen, tense face and decided this young gun needed a pick me up from good ole Ms. Mary. She reached out with her leathery, wrinkled hand and touched Chase's arm and said, " Gracious sweetie, don't you just love the smell of fresh coffee?" Chase did a quick sniff and noticed someone coming by serving steamy rich coffee. Ms. Mary asked if he drank coffee, and Chase nodded that he did. She smiled at the server and said, "Two coffees with extra sugar and extra cream please sweetie." Ms. Mary insisted on paying for the coffee and then began a conversation with Chase that went from the where are you from all the way to how important it is to notice the little things in life, ......like the smell of fresh coffee.
When the train pulled into Providence station, Chase had enjoyed the conversation and coffee with Ms. Mary so much that all of a sudden, his terrible, horrible bad day wasn't going to be remembered that way. No, this day would be remembered for Ms. Mary and a great conversation over coffee and for Chase that was a very pleasant surprise. Ms. Mary's kind and encouraging words got in the way of Chase's bad day.
In our lives today, the terrible, no good days are always ready to happen. Bad news from the doctor, car breaking down, drug issues in the family are just a a few of the bad days that we have in our lives. Psalm 19:14 says, "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer." So, the next time you see someone having one of these days, think of Ms. Mary and let your words remind that person of a simple joy of life. Let your words get in their way of their horrible, no good day.
God Bless!
No comments:
Post a Comment