Paintgate...

Politics has all these “gate” scandals – you know, Watergate, Bridgegate, Irangate, etc.  Our family this week has been hit with paintgate.  My son, Tyler, has ended his career as a legal videographer and become a house flipper.  He has two successful sales under his belt and is working extremely hard trying to renovate a couple more homes.  One of those houses is at the end of our street on Greenbrier Drive, and without a working toilet at this moment, Tyler will just run up to our house to use the restroom.

I’m on a job this week and get a text message from him:  “This has been the worst day of my life.  I was on my way up to your house, pulling the box trailer.”  Now, at this sentence, I am thinking something really horrible has had to happen – a wreck, the trailer came unhooked from the truck, or the liftgate of the trailer fell open and all the new doors and windows he had purchased flew out and busted into a million pieces.  You know how your brain jumps ahead….

So the text continues:  “As I was driving, a five-gallon brand new bucket of paint fell over in the trailer and busted wide open, spilling all the paint into the trailer and then dripping it all over the street and all over your driveway.  I have been power washing your driveway for the last two hours to get the paint off, but I’ve run out of hose, so when you get home, there is paint on two-thirds of the driveway that I couldn’t get to.  I will take care of it but I need more hose lengths.  It has been a horrible day.  Oh, yeah, and while I was power washing, the Chief of Police came by to tell me everyone was complaining about the paint on the street.” 

I have to admit, I laughed when I read this – more the laugh of “Oh, so glad it didn’t happen to me,” and “Glad it wasn’t worse than this,” and kind of a “Oh, you thought legal videography was bad – was it ever this bad?”  When I got home, yes, there was paint all up the street on Greenbrier – and oh, yay, trailing RIGHT INTO MY DRIVEWAY!  So if you wondered who did this thing, it becomes very clear where the trail runs….

When I got to talk to Tyler the next day, he said it was truly the worst day ever.  Of course, I give the mom talk of “Oh, there are worse things, it could have been a bad health diagnosis, an accident,” etc.  I said, “You know, I’m going to have to write my story Saturday about this so we explain this paintgate situation, and I’m going to need to give it a spiritual lesson.  What do you think the spiritual message is?”  He says, “I’m thinking Jonah and the whale.”  I’m like, “How in the world would this compare to Jonah?”  He says, “Well, all the bad things that can happen.”  I say, “But Jonah was running from God and needed a heads-up.  Are you running from God?”  “Well, no.  I’m just too worn out to think of a good analogy.”

As I’ve driven up my street and down my driveway with its trail of paint, I keep thinking about that story I told a year or so ago about the toilet paper trailing behind someone and them not knowing it, so I thought I would refresh that story and its lesson learned.  And If you have been negatively affected by this paint, please forgive us.  We’re working on it….

TP story retold:  A year or so ago, I ran into a friend in Target, and she says, “Did Tal tell you she saw me?”  I said, “No, she didn’t.”  My friend says, “Well, I cannot believe she didn’t tell you!”  She says this in a way that was a little more than the normal.  She repeats it again, “I cannot believe she didn’t tell you!”  I said, “Well, I’ll have to ask her why.”  She goes on to tell me why Talia should have “remembered” to tell me, as it was a very memorable event when the two of them ran into each other.

My friend works at a downtown office that’s near the United Bank building, the big mirrored building right by the Kanawha County Courthouse.  She wanted to go to the courthouse building for lunch – there’s a guy there that sells hot dogs and sandwiches and things on the second floor there and they’re very reasonable and good.  My friend –- let’s call her Marge.  Marge goes to the restroom before she leaves her building, then walks the block that contains the United Bank, the MIRRORED building, then walks into the courthouse.  The Kanawha County Courthouse has an elaborate security system there almost like an airport where they take your purse, you walk through the machine that will ding if you have your keys or anything, and then sometimes they use their wand up and down you to do further checks.  She makes it past the security detail, gets on the elevator, goes up to the second floor, stands in line, gets her food, back down the elevator, back out by the security people, back by the MIRRORED building, and she’s on the street getting ready to go back into her workplace, and Tal is driving down the street.
 
Tal hollers our her window at her, “Hey, Marge!”  She says, “Oh, hey, Tal, how are you?”  Tal says, “I’m good – come and get in my car.”  Marge says, “I can’t, I’ve got my lunch and I’ve got to get back to work.”  Tal says, louder (hollering across the street), “Marge, GET IN MY CAR!”  Marge says, “Talia, I cannot get in your car – I’m going back to work!”  So that then prompts Tal to scream (still hollering across the street), “You’ve got toilet paper hanging out of your pants!”  Marge did not have a small scrap at the top of her pants, or even at the bottom of her pants – she had a TRAIL of toilet paper, leaving the waistband of her pants, going all the way to the ground, and trailing behind her!
 
Now, here’s the most interesting part of this story:  Marge had traveled down two city blocks, twice going past a fully mirrored building, in through the security, up the elevator, stood in line at the snack place (who the owner is blind so we can’t blame him….), but how many people did she run into in that condition?  Probably 20 at least!  NO ONE was willing to tell her that she had a train of TP as long as a bridal gown.  This is a funny story (not to Marge, if she’s reading this, I’m sure!) but it is an illustration of how we are not willing to say the hard things sometimes, you know, those things that you should say to a friend, “I love you, but you are so negative, you really bring me down sometimes.  Can we work together on helping you find more positive things to talk about?”  Or “I feel like sometimes you involve me in gossip that I don’t want to be involved in – can we pray together about that?  I don’t want to lose our friendship.”  Or the “I notice you seem to talk an awful lot about that co-worker, more so than you talk about your husband.  Are you being tempted to do things that you shouldn’t be doing?” 
 
Oh, I know, no one wants to butt their nose into anyone else’s business – and trust me, the last thing I need is my nose in someone’s business – but sometimes if you are a TRUE friend, you will speak the truth, in love, and that is what makes friendships grow and become a GODLY friendship, with no secrets, no lying, no evading of who we really are.

There is a scripture that is one of my favorite stories.  It takes place in Numbers 22 – the whole chapter is riveting, but it’s the scripture where the donkey talks.  If you don’t know the story, please go read it – it’s fascinating!  But for me, the truth of that scripture this morning is, the donkey had eyes to see that the angels of the Lord were warning this man NOT to proceed through what he was doing, and the donkey ends up getting beat for trying to save his master from this peril he was headed into.  When the donkey begins to talk, he says to his master (paraphrased) – “What is it you are beating on me?  Have I ever done this to you before?  Have I not carried your sorry rear end all over this country and never once run you into a wall or laid down on you before?”  I laugh as I’m typing this, as I can just hear it….this donkey was saving his master from trouble, but the master wasn’t seeing what he was seeing and wasn’t accepting the warning gracefully.
 
Are you a friend who needs saved from what you’re involving yourself in?  Or are you the friend who is too cowardly to speak the truth to your sister or your friend or your co-worker when you see them headed down a path of destruction?  Let’s try to be REAL friends to each other – not backstabbers, not gossips, but Godly encouragement in the time of trouble.  We’re in this thing together!  And I PROMISE you, if I see you with a trail of TP behind you, I will get you in my car – LOL!
 

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