Needling

I went for a blood test last Saturday morning.  I had an appointment for 8:15.  It was a fasting test and I like to get it done early,  So I can have breakfast.  (I would hate to miss a meal.)

When I arrived at the lab there were already three ladies in the waiting room.  One lady had an appointment and was taken right back.  Two of the ladies didn't have appointments and were fussing about the unfairness of that.  They had to wait, in the waiting room.  I signed in, but didn't mention to them that I too had an appointment.

When I was called before her one of the ladies who had been sitting there started to fuss that she had been skipped.  The tech explained that people with appointments went first.  That didn't go over well. 

Just one of the events of a day, except, when I went back the lab tech started fussing at me about the patients who complained because they had no appointments.  They we "causing trouble," she said.  I wasn't sure what she meant, because they didn't look like the kinds of people to start a riot or throw chairs.  They were just cranky old ladies.  I know how that goes because I have been that old lady from time to time.

I decided to try to insert some love into to the situation and tried to calm the waters about the fussy ladies and how they were probably hungry and waiting was hard, but the lab tech wasn't having any of it. I changed tactics and complemented the tech and she calmed down a bit.  She complemented the cross I was wearing.  I told her what a good job she did drawing my blood.

I reflected as I left the lab that life presents challenges.  People aren't always nice.  And still, I am called to be nice to them.  Perfect love would fix the situation, but I only bring my own attempt at love.  I am called to be kind and loving even to the cranky, the trouble makers and the complainers. If I pack some love with all the other things I carry around, then Christ is with me.

(And I was perhaps the only one who had a positive experience that morning at the lab.)