Lesson in Humility

Those of you who know me, might know that humility is not my strong point. Today was a day in which I took this lesson to the bank.


The day started great. I had a few staff on my team come to me with major crisis's (well o.k. they were minor little issues, but for the sake of the story I think they should be major...). I was able to put on my supervisor hat and use some critical thinking and help solve the problem. It is a good feeling to solve a problem isn't it?

I also managed to remember to leave a message with one of my clients to remind them of thier final court hearing that afternoon. I was on a roll.

So by lunch I was feeling pretty good about myself. It happened to be a manager's lunch and while we were eating and discussing the happenings of the last few weeks I might have said something along the lines of this: "Give me your crisis. I am in the mode. I am solving problems left and right. I can handle ANYTHING!" I think I may have made a few dramatic hand gestures as well.

At this point my phone rings... It is the family I called earlier about court. They had NO idea they had court! Wow, I was so glad I called them, or they never would have shown up. Good thing I have such amazing foresight. I am on FIRE today.

Fast forward 2 hours. It is 2:15 and I am about 10 minutes away from Kent County Court in down town Grand Rapids. I am signing along to some great tunes and out of the blue it hit me. I called the wrong family. Panic. I just had this couple cancel thier entire afternoon, change their plans and drive 45 minutes to down town g.r. to pay for parking, go through medal detectors, take an elevator up 9 floors for NOTHING!

As I frantically tried to get a hold of them hopeing they had not parked I realized I had no cell phone or way to contact them. Sure enough as I park, go through security, speed up to the 9th floor, their they sit. Looking great, their little guy even had on a suit! It was precious. All I could do was lay my head on the dad's shoulder and apologize and beg forgiveness. Guess what, the laughed! They forgave me! They joked they would fire me, but they like me too much. What a lesson in grace. Meanwhile, in explaining all this to family A, I realize family B is not here. In fact it is empty. This is not the floor that court is going to be on. So I make a few calls and find out I need to be on the 6th floor. Now I am 10 minutes late, and the right family is most likely thinking I am MIA. I finally make it down (after the elevator stops at floor 8,7, and then finally 6, really!) to find out there is about a hour delay in all the hearings for the day.

Luckily I get to sit and play with 2 of the best kids. We play gimme 5 and drink pretend tea and look out the massive windows at the city. We get called in for our turn and have a really nice hearing. The best part was that the judge finalizing the adoption was the same judge who married the couple years ago!

So I walk out into a beautiful spring afternoon, happy for forgiveness, happy for forever families, happy for pretend tea parites on the 6th floor of the court house, happy for finally putting all the mistakes behind me. As I put my $20 in the parking machine to pay my $4 parking fee, the final blow hits. The $16 due back in change starts dropping, in coin form into my hand. Now, I have $16 worth of coins in my wallet.

That is what I get for being cocky before noon.