A lesson in waiting.

It was raining and it was cold and her baby was sick. I sat in my car waiting on an open gas pump and I watched her bundle her snotty nosed, sick, crying baby and run inside with him to get something that I assumed was medicinal in nature. I'm not sure what exactly she bought, but it didn't matter. She came running back to her car, sick baby still in tow, as I was fueling my car with the last few gallons it needed and I noticed her hurry. It was a frantic sort of hurry, like something was seriously not right. I contemplated going over to see if I could help but also didn't want to make an already frantic mother feel as though she LOOKED as out of control as she probably felt. So I continued fueling.

What happened next taught me a lesson in waiting, and in grace, and in speaking up. I stood there continuing to fuel my car and an angry man pulled up behind her. Now, before I continue let me paint a picture for you of what this gas station looked like. It's Christmas Eve Eve, it's 3:30 pm, and it's an industrial district ... which translates to ... it's the day before a holiday, people are just now leaving their shifts at work, and they need gas to prepare for their Christmas travels. There wasn't a single pump open at this major truck stop, but she wasn't the only person that this man could've pulled up behind which makes this lesson seem even more like it was meant for my eyes.

At this point the lady with the sick baby had already strapped her baby in his car seat and was sitting in her car, but turned around trying to help her little one who was throwing up nonstop. After the impatient man had sat in his ugly blue truck for about a minute, he got out and proceeded to slam profanity against the pavement and wave his arms around in an effort to declare his irritation to the masses. He approached her car window and banged on it as loudly as he could and startled the woman half to death. "YOU GOT YO GAS, NOW IT'S TIME FOR ME TO GET GAS. I GOTTA GET GAS TOO, YOU KNOW! (Insert profanity here.)" She tried explaining to him that her baby was sick but he wasn't having it. Grumpy ol' Blue Truck sat his little impatient rear end back in his little ugly blue truck and waited another minute before he started blaring his horn once more.

This time as he approached her vehicle with his profanity and flailing arms, a very nice man came out of nowhere and approached him as politely and sternly as he could. "Sir, I understand that you need to get gas but she is all by herself with a sick baby and she's really struggling in there. Give her a little bit more time. She doesn't want to be sitting here any more than you do." I'm so glad he was courageous enough to be the one who stepped up, because he did it with so much more grace than I would have. I wanted to put that man in his place and make him feel lowly for how he was treating her. But what the random man did was to explain the situation and diffuse the anger that had built up in the impatient one.

I learned so much just from sitting there and watching this all unfold. I learned that people are going to inevitably be in your way at the most inopportune times, but also that even the people in your way may not want to be in your way. What you view as the advantage in their position that is "ahead" of you, may look to them like disaster. Try being patient and graceful in your approach. But I also learned that the way to approach someone who isn't handling a situation the right way or maybe someone who is really making a jerk out of themselves, isn't to rise to their level of discontent ... but rather to meet them with a calm, stern, steadfast spirit that actually has the potential to smother their fire rather than kindle it.