Stood up

Tears would eventually fill Madison's eyes until they had no choice but to run over, as she buried her head in my shirt. Deep disappointment is what she was feeling after we waited for 1/2 hour at the movie theatre for her friends to arrive, only to watch stranger after stranger arrive and no friends. It's hard to see a child that disappointed. I sat there waiting too and of course it's only 10 minutes before the movie started and I'm already fuming inside for them to be so late! ... Not too much longer and the movie had definitely gotten off to a good start. ...Madison searched earnestly out the window for them. I didn't have a ticket so she entered the theatre on her own and went and looked for them, hoping that for some bizarre reason they didn't wait for her. Nope, not there. We called Jazmin's dad's house, where all of the phone calls came from the night before only to find no one home. "May be their car wouldn't start." ... "May be the location got mixed up." Graciously, the ticket lady granted her money back and away she went, away from the theatre, with her head hung low. We went home and Madison found Jazmin's mom's phone number in her planner. The story gradually unfolded. Unfortunately Jazmin's mom told her earlier in the week about the plans to go to the movie etc... and then Jazmin left for her dad's house for several days. Sometime during the week Mom changed her mind and decided to have a BBQ at her house instead. So when Jazmin went to Mom's house today after school she found that the plans were off. ...It would have been nice to get a phone call. You all would have been so proud of me as I practiced RESTRAINT while talking to her mother on the phone and how I practiced my Christian attitude that I unfortunately DID NOT FEEL inside but hopefully showed on the outside. "We're not even divorced yet and everything is so fresh, it's so hard..." and basically the lines of communication got mixed up. Very mixed up. And I was left standing with a terribly disappointed girl. "Possibly tomorrow night" said her mom. I'm thinking "how about never" but heard myself saying, "yeah, let's trade cell numbers and may be it will work".

You know, this is why I like to stay within my nice group of RESPONSIBLE Christian friends who would never in a million years stand you up at a movie! Is that a Christ-like attitude? Probably not.

Quinn and I were just talking last night about the type of people that Jesus chose to spend his time with on earth... cheating tax collectors, those who were down and out, the needy, the unlovely... certainly not those who had it "all together". Little did I know that I would be reminded of this tonight. This has been a lesson in several ways for me. First of all, I assumed Mom or Dad was standing to the side of the 4 phone call conversations; agreeing, planning and coordinating what was going on. Obviously that didn't happen (or possibly the dad was clueless about the new plans too?). Next time, I will have to talk to the parent. Even Quinn and Nate can make reliable plans over the phone without a huge mix up. (sigh). I also have had to search inside of myself to "allow" a friendship to grow with someone who isn't like us. We've been learning in church for a year now about accepting people who aren't like us and that it is desirable to attract people to us, so others can see our Christ led lives, but we have to let them get close enough to us to really see this. So, I guess after all of this, Madison was able to cheer up, she realizes that it wasn't intentional. "May be Jazmin was afraid to call me, thinking I would be mad at her." She was the first to point out that a phone call would have worked... but we will try to model our response through the eyes of Jesus and make plans for another day.