Zaza learns about grace

Seriously, I don’t know why I feel so happy this morning. Maybe I’m ill.
There has been lots of stress recently and we had a student council meeting the other day and there was shouting (much of it directed at me from one of my beloved classmates!) and some pretty angry feelings. I started to defend myself, and then thought, what’s the point? And I closed my mouth and waited until she was done and then waited some more and then kept smiling and then after the meeting didn’t say anything to her, just smiled graciously and went home. (And cried, but she didn’t know that!)
Yesterday all our classes were cancelled because the school had arranged a community outreach program. I got up at some ungodly hour and met the other keen students at school (there were only 7 of us because it was bucketing rain and pretty early), and we squished in a van and drove across the island to the Port authority. We had to go through security checks and then we set up a mobile health clinic with several stations and put up a sign. Over the course of the next 5 hours we saw about 150 people: doing basic health screening like blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, etc. I was with another student named Charles, manning the patient counseling station. So after the patients had gone through all their tests, they came and sat down with us and we discussed it with them, made recommendations, etc. A little scary and totally fun!
It was ridiculously busy. All the port employees came and Charles and I talked until our mouths were dry. Most of the people had minor health problems and we ended up just recommended healthy diet and exercise, but there were a few that needed more help. One lady was having an acute angina attack so I spent some time with her impressing the need to go to the hospital! Another woman, when I asked if she had any more questions, shared that she had been having panic attacks since going through menopause and couldn’t handle the stresses of life. Thankfully I’d just learned about medications for anxiety the day before and I was able to give her some helpful counsel. One older man told me how he was the union boss and the job was killing him and he couldn’t handle the stress, his blood pressure was through the roof. He was a Christian and I talked to him about true peace coming from praying and resting in God….it was pretty cool.
There was a tv crew there from the local news and the president of the university was there and she came to me and asked if I would say something in front of the camera. I stood up and gave a spiel about hypertension and what the average Antiguan could do to limit their risks and get treated. The camera man stood in front of me while I interviewed patients and he was standing there while I talked to one lady who had a wandering eye. I wasn’t sure where to look in her face (which eye actually worked?) and the camera was hanging over my shoulder and finally I turned to him and said, “Excuse me, could you go away? This is a private conversation.”
My landlady called me last night to say I was on tv and thankfully they edited out my comment to the camera man. I was pretty excited, though, even though I discovered later that I had been sitting on a piece of gum the whole time.
We are having a series of big storms right now and the wind has blown down one of our clotheslines, so Burton strung lines up across my room and down the hall and I hung the laundry up inside to dry. It looks like a little Laundromat now.
I stayed up late last night studying and then caught a couple hours sleep and then got up early. Asa had an exam this morning and was roaring around the house like an army tank about to blow a gasket. Asa has been chronically late and chronically messy since we moved in and the only thing that has kept me from wanting to kill him is the fact that my classes start after him…. So even if he’s 20 minutes late every day, I’m still on time. He hasn’t slept much the last few days and is worried about his exams, so let’s just say that the tension level is running pretty high.
“HD, we gotta leave in 10 minutes” he came and told me as I was still sitting in bed reading my bible.
5 minutes later, “HD, are you dressed yet? Please tell me you have clothes on. We have to leave! I’m all ready to go!”
I threw my stuff in my bag and jumped into my pants.
“Listen, HD, we gotta go! I’ve got an exam!”
I don’t know if he would’ve heard if I’d pointed out that Burton and I also had exams, but we weren’t yelling and stomping around the house. I thought about the fact that anytime I had needed to be somewhere a certain time I’d told him the night before, then woke him up early enough in the morning, and then reminded him graciously, and then Asa still managed to make me late for everything. Sometimes an hour late. I could feel steam beginning to rise from my ears. There is nothing I hate worse than being made late because someone couldn’t get their act together in time- unless, of course, it is being rushed out the door.
Yes, it’s true. I have done a colossal shift in my mind. One major argument over the years in our house has been the issue of lateness. Lateness is rudeness, Dad always said. I hated being rushed out the door and would balk to the nth degree.
I will publicly go on record today and say that I was wrong and Dad was right: I now agree with him that lateness is rudeness. This morning I had to pray for an extra helping of grace. God, please keep my mouth shut so I don’t say anything to Asa. Please help me to be respectful and gracious and resist the temptation to throw something in his face. And please, please let him remember this next time I want to be on time.
Being able to go through daily life with grace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is one that I want produced in my life: can I be publicly slandered in a meeting, talk with patients, appear in front of a camera, deal with a room full of laundry, get no sleep, interact with my roommates, pass all my classes, and still do it all with grace? Can I respond politely and respectfully and graciously when that is the last thing I want to do?
The answer is yes- but only with the help of the Spirit. It’s one of those things that is impossible in my own strength, but totally possible with God.