Thursday, August 16, 2012

Not a word

Every day, I ask God to guide me.  I ask Him to put His thoughts in my head (because mine can be so ugly), His words in my mouth (because I do have a temper), and His love in my heart (because some people, only God can love!).  Today, I saw my prayers answered.

I should probably start with last night, or actually, when I was sick.  When I was "sick", I had a lot of trouble with conspiracy thinking and paranoia.  I wanted a huge "prep" like you'd see on that TV show (nice thing about being poor, Ron's got about a dozen cans of pasta but that's it), weapons, and a fallout shelter.  For a while, I was obsessed with building a fallout shelter for the coming dirty bomb attack.  Yes, it was coming.  I was the only one who knew, and I had to prepare.  I planned to build it in the hallway; and had a heck of a time talking myself out of it.  I only told Ron about it later, when he asked "why" I had to take an antipsychotic.  He got a little bug-eyed when I told him.

I was obsessed with conspiracy theories and paranoia.  Now, if you read my diary excerpt some of that is probably a reasonable response to the "trauma".  For a normal person, though, it was too much.

Happily, the right medication made that all go away.  Having had that experience, I tend to view "conspiracy theorists" as mentally ill and in need of medication.  I pity them.

Now, things are getting worse, and I believe they will get pretty bad for Christians before the rapture, but either you believe in God, or you don't.  If you do believe, you also believe He is "mighty to save". If you don't believe, well, I'm praying.  (((hugs)))

So, I met a woman, a Christian, online, talking about conspiracies.  She does this a lot.  Kept saying we had to "take steps to protect ourselves".  I found that REALLY scary.  What does she have planned?

I asked her, very politely what steps she had planned, and mentioned I would still be "Repping Jesus in the 'hood".  She got very angry with me and began name calling.  I then quoted a Bible verse:
 2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

She got very angry, deleted the thread, after more name-calling and "blocking" me - actually a huge relief for me.  

Like I said, either you believe in Him, or you don't.  

So, I had all that.  

Today was even more interesting.  Ron and I are contract vendors at a federal facility.  We provide cold food, canned soda, bottled soda, snacks, bottled water, coffee, etc.  "Vending" food.  We also provide condiments.  

We are responsible for the care of the machines.  Today, we went to the grocery store, bought some bottled soda, took it to work, and put it in the fridge.  Tomorrow Ron will stock it into the bottled vendor.  

In the meantime, I had bought some value line cookies (I try to sell some items as cheaply as possible, to provide a good bargain for the "limited" customer - they do well), stocked them, did snacks, did sodas, did the cold food, basically did everything.  I was very hot and tired, so I sat down in one of the break rooms with a cold soda I bought from the vending machine.  

A customer came in.  I smiled at her.  She mumbled something.  I said "What?"  

"I SAID hello!".  Hm.  She is not a friendly person.  I could tell she was in a worse mood than usual.  A little background, never buys anything, ever.  She uses up the condiments, though, which we pay for, with the assumption that people will actually buy a food item now and then to balance the cost.  Not her.  Not only that, she makes a lot of passing, critical comments.  When I cut my hair a few years ago, she said "Why did you CHOP it?"  I said I was tired of long hair, it was very hot.  She just scoffed at me.  It is safe to say we have different hair.  

Anyway, she started in yelling at me over the condiment holder.  I said, that is something for the custodians.  She kept ranting that I had to clean it, it was filthy.  I just drank my soda.  God let me know she was looking for a confrontation.  

Then she started in on the coffee machine.  Who cleaned that, huh?  I told her that was Ron's job.  She got angry that a blind man cleaned the machine, said it should be my job, I had to clean it, etc.  I reminded her Ron had just cleaned it on Monday but she was on a tear.  It got progressively uglier as I quietly drank my soda.  Then, I got up and left.  She was shouting at my back as I left.  

Frankly, I was a little scared of her.  Ron was working on the food machine.  I went up to him and asked if I could help.  Post-head-injury, Ron will not tolerate ANY criticism of me, and the population know it.  

Ron said he had to go to the bathroom, as he sat in the wheelchair.  I told him, I'll take you.  "I thought you were taking a break?".  Don't worry, Ron, I'll take you.  I need to get out of here.  

We went to the bathroom.  I waited on him and put up the email blog - I haven't checked to see if it posted.  When Ron came out, he said he wanted to check the soda machine in the break room.  I told him, NO, don't.  

He laughed, "Why?"  I told him "There is a very ugly person in there looking for a fight.  She just spent the last 5 minutes yelling at me over the coffee machine!"  

"But that's my job!" he replied.  
"I know, but please stay out of there.  She is looking for a fight.  A fight would be a beautiful gift for her.  Please don't give it to her."  

I had to manually drag the wheelchair away from the break room.  As she came out of the break room, Ron and I were laughing as we wrestled for control of the wheelchair.  I'm sure that really smoked her bacon.  

Anyway, she was gone.  I had a look at the condiment area.  Not our job, but it did look bad.  So, I cleaned it.  I figured it would be easier to clean it than deal with a formal complaint.  I also looked at the coffee machine, which was fine except for a few specks on the sliding door, which I also cleaned.  

[shudder]  I'm so glad I can avoid that woman.  She is hateful.  

Back in the old days, I would have gotten right back in her face and shouted back at her, and it would have been epic.  However, even in the Bible, Jesus didn't answer His accusers when they slandered him.  "He answered not a word".  (Matthew 27:14)

That's what I did - I answered her questions and shut up as she made an ass of herself.  Why?  Because God answered my prayer!   

She did want a fight - then she could be the victim.  So, I wouldn't give her one.  I pity her if she hunts Ron down, though.  

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