I'm leading a class for women from now until Easter. We Methodists and Catholics and other High Church folks call this time Lent.
The class topic is how we sometimes beat ourselves up over mistakes or wrong choices - or - and this is the worst - fall apart when others say mean things to us. Beating ourselves up does no good and there are much healthier ways to handle these times.
We had our first session on Thursday. I loved it and feel honored with the great group of women who showed up.
On Friday morning Dave and I were scheduled to take our friend to the hospital for a procedure. Others wanted to take her but I won out, partly because she absolutely had to be there on time - and everybody knows both Dave and I are "early" people.
We arrived at her house and waited five minutes in the car because we were five minutes early. Then I went to the door and rang the bell. Then knocked. Then called her phone numbers. No response!
Oh, oh, something's wrong. I went though the privacy fence and way round the garden and finally found a way into the house.
Yes, I broke into her house!
Then went through rooms calling her name. She finally appeared but she was in her robe. I was very relieved but wondered why she was running so late.
As it turns out, she wasn't. We weren't five minutes early. We were ONE HOUR AND FIVE MINUTES EARLY!
I felt terrible. I felt dumb. I apologised to Dave and to her and then did it over again - and wanted to do it again after that. And felt so bad about causing her stress on the day of her procedure. (Even though she wasn't evidencing any stress at all. I was.) Finally, I realized that I was overreacting like we'd just discussed in the class.
And who was leading that class again?
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