31 Ways to Live in Peace, Day 13

Story time...

I'd been going to the gym regularly for six months.  Monday thru Friday its always the same one employee there manning the front desk at 5 AM.  Over the months I'd made it a point to learn her name and use it every morning in my friendly greeting to her.  Occasionally I'd even stop to chat for 30 seconds.

Then one day, at the beep of the scanner reading my card she stopped me.

Lisa, there's a problem with your card...it looks like its expired.

Oh, right...I've run into this problem a couple times this month...I didn't realize how many things I had on "automatic".  The new expiration date is xx/xx. 

We need the actual card.

I don't have it with me...I don't bring my purse to the gym.

I'm sorry...I'm not going to be able to let you workout today.

Really?!?

Yes.

So I turned and walked out of the gym.  I was fuming.  I'd gotten up and driven there, only to be turned away at the door because my credit card had expired and they couldn't process my $10 monthly payment?!?

Immediately I got on my computer and tapped out an email to the manager, who no doubt was sleeping soundly in bed.  We went back and forth and got my payment squared away so I was able to return to the gym but now I felt betrayed by my "friend" at the front desk.  I thought we'd had a good thing going and I know enough about customer service to know she maybe should have thrown me out of the gym but didn't have to.  It maybe could have waited one more day, given my flawless payment history.

The first couple times I went back I returned her greeting with my own terse response through a clenched smile.  I had been offended, like we talked about yesterday, and now I had a choice.  For peace in my heart, I had to choose to...

Forgive

With each passing day I walked into the gym not happy to see my friend, it slowly started to dawn on me how silly (and harmful) my grudge was.  The chances that this front desk clerk had spent any time at all thinking about the incident and how it affected me were slim and yet the offense had been pestering me each morning when I walked in.

I realize in the world of things that need to be forgiven this is a quaint little story.  People have big, huge things in their life to forgive, but I believe the principles are the same.

Forgiving others in the little unimportant failures is practice for making forgiveness a way of life.  Its giving up the right to be hurt.  The right to be right.  Its letting go of the right to hold on to the pain.  Its releasing the offender from the courtroom of our heart.  Its extending the Grace we have been so freely given.  Its bringing freedom and peace back into our hearts and lives.