Gratitude Day 637

2 Corinthians 12:9 – But he answered me, “My grace is always more than enough for you, and my power finds its full expression through your weakness.” So, I will celebrate my weaknesses, for when I’m weak I sense more deeply the mighty power of Christ living in me.

In a moment of weakness, I made a bad decision.

It began when the doorbell rang. A person from a communications company was standing on our front porch. He had been at our house pre-pandemic, trying to convince me to switch internet companies then. But I stood fast and explained how a previous experience with the company was less than desirable. A couple years earlier, a salesperson from this same company showed up and convinced the other resident of our house that switching companies was a good idea. We were going to “save” a whole bunch of money.

Well, it wasn’t. It was a hot mess. The service was not good AND we weren’t saving money. Because I am the person who takes care of these kinds of things, I spent hours undoing and reconnecting our service with our internet and TV provider.

I swore that I would never do this again.

So, when the current sales rep showed up pre-pandemic, I stopped him in his feet. No, we were not interested.

And then, he showed up again this week.

This week, my heart was not as rigid. Our internet service has been slow. Getting the company to respond and help has been a challenge. The sales rep on our porch assured me that once I had the equipment, I would have it up and running in 10 minutes. I could try it out for free a few days and see what I thought.

Usually, I see through these promotions quickly. But that afternoon, I let the guy persuade me. And yes, I should have known better.

Yesterday, the box arrived. Last night, I tried to get it set-up. The instructions in the box said downloading their app would be the quickest way to get everything set-up. It said the account would be tied to the phone number I provided to the company. When my phone number didn’t work, I called into the company and asked for help.

It was several minutes of entering information before a real person came on the line. But the call was quickly dropped, and I had to start all over again. I eventually got to a real person this time, who said I needed to go to another department. Well, of course, I did.

A nice lady came on the phone. She couldn’t find our account for quite a while. Eventually, she found it and now it was time to get it set-up. Because we currently are with another provider, hook-up and activation would require a technician coming to our house. Of course, this was never mentioned to me. I was led to believe that I could simply hook everything up, try it for a few days and see what I thought of their internet service.

Wrong.

By now, I felt that I had wasted too much time on this deal and simply asked that the lady send the appropriate slip so I could just send the equipment back. Of course, this would require going to another department. This woman was apologetic and said she was sorry that the salesperson had not been honest with me. She sent me to the department that would help me send the equipment back. By the time she got me there, they were closed for the evening. I put everything back in the box and it’s sitting on the floor in my office.

I knew better than to let the salesperson talk me into trying a new modem. I anticipated that it might not be as slick as he described, although I thought I could do it without a technician. Instead, two hours later, I simply plugged our slow internet modem back in.

It was a moment of weakness that I simply wish I would have made a different choice.

We all find ourselves in situations where we are quite sure we know the best answer or solution, but we allow ourselves to be drug down an alternative path. The sale person mention remembering our beautiful Christmas decorations. He made it sound so, well, easy.

Wrong.

My example of making a poor choice in a moment of weakness is so minor compared to the other decisions we make EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Some of these situations involve continuing to make a poor decision over and over, such as addiction. Some of these decisions can be reversed, or almost reversed. Others require a lot more steps and time and effort. Sometimes, we may not want to change our behavior. We prefer things the way they are.

Years ago, I became aware of this scripture where Paul writes about how he struggles with choice. It was reassuring for a Martha-figure like me to know that I’m not the only person who struggles with accepting our weaknesses. Paul takes weakness once step further when he declares that in our weaknesses, we have the opportunity to grow.

He’s trying to assure us that even when we make a bad choice, we have opportunity to find a silver lining.

I’m not sure what the silver lining is with my attempt to change internet companies.

If we are honest, we would all have a story or two that shows our weaknesses. Too often, society says we shouldn’t show our weaknesses and/or vulnerabilities. It makes us look incompetent and we get embarrassed.

But God really wants to see all of us. The good, the bad and the ugly. While we are too quick to judge each other, God is able to separate those things from who we are. Thank goodness, God over looks our shortcomings so much more than we do. God is able to see beyond our weaknesses and see whose we really are. We tend to be so much more judgmental and temperamental with each other. We forget to treat each other the way we want to be treated.

When we make a poor decision, it’s easy to invest a lot of time and energy to something that’s already done and over. God offers us this wonderful thing called grace. I pray that we allow grace as well.

Blessings –

Dianne

Holy God – We make poor choices every day. And we can’t simply expect You to show up and fix our messes. No, Lord God, may we embrace these poor choices and come to appreciate and understand the grace You grant us. Amen.

If you have enjoyed this blog, please pass it along to someone else who will also enjoy it.