Thursday 21 March 2013

Why didn’t I ask?

I had been into the school to take an assembly. I love the story of Joseph, how his brothers had planned evil against him and God turned it all to good. So now I had a free hour to do my shopping.

I had parked on the side of the drive in, as all the parking spaces were full. Yes, there was room to pass me. So now I drove around, only to find the way out was blocked. My free hour was being eroded as I tried to turn in a confined space.

I knew I could have run back in and asked for help. The obliging head has got me out of a predicament before. All I had to do was ask. So, why didn’t I?

Someone had complimented me the other day on my humility. That is a dangerous thing to do. After all, it would be awful if I took pride in being humble, wouldn’t it?
And maybe what appears as humility is just lack of confidence.

So now, why didn’t I go and ask for help? I confess. Yes, it was pride, pure and simple. They were already laughing that Mrs Lewis has lost the Mediterranean. (all I’d lost was a blue flash card for when we made the classroom into a map, not the entire sea.) So now they would be laughing at these hopeless women drivers. So no, I didn’t go and ask for help. Somehow I could do this.

I would bump the car up over the verge and squeeze past by driving on the grass.

Oh! You should have seen me! The curb was steeper that I thought and the grass it protected soggy from so much rain that I found I had landed in a bog. I thought I was back in New Guinea. My wheels were spinning, mud being splattered all over my lovely shiny car.

So in the end I had to ask. It took the head master and every man jack on the staff to get me back on the road.

I hope I will learn this lesson, to ask before I get deeper into trouble. We all need help, and especially from God. Maybe the trouble hasn’t come yet? But if or when it does, let’s take David’s advice, who said, ‘This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and delivered him from all his fears.’

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