Telemarketing for God

I am enjoying a quiet morning at home, catching up on some reading, writing and finding lost objects in my office. Then the phone rang. It sounded like my friend, Belinda, but it wasn't. It was a telemarketer.

But this one was different. She was pleasant, had a great laugh, and I didn't mind talking to her. And it may have turned out to be one of those God moments.

OK, I know you're probably rolling your eyes and thinking, good grief, Kathy, how do you spiritualize a telemarketing phone call and turn it into an outreach conversation. But you will probably discover, if you haven't already, that I can spin just about anything into a connecting point with others.

But here is what came to mind. And back to Shane Claiborne and his observation that Christians act the same as everyone else. I wouldn't particularly enjoy being a telemarketer (only a collection agent ranks lower in my mind...and Matt recently got a phone call from one of them regarding a hospital bill he didn't even know he had) but as Christians we shouldn't respond by being rude, snapping at the poor voice on the other end of the line, or any other number of exasperated, cranky ways.

I listened to what the fun gal had to say, and actually noted that we didn't need any of the services she was offering as we were doing OK. She remarked that God had been good to us, I agreed, we laughed together, connected and I invited her to visit the blog. I hope she does.

And if she does, I hope she comments. But I think the conversation put a smile into both of our days.

Hitting Roadblocks...

So today was a bit frustrating...I do some mystery shopping, which is a cool gig, until you go to write your reports and the computer doesn't cooperate. I filled out a couple of forms several times only to have it not transmit...and then discovered that two reports I filled online forms in for arrived at their destination blank. Same with a longer report. It represents a fair amount of time and no copy, so it all needs to be done over again, with no guarantee that it won't happen again. Sigh. So at least the next time I will print a copy of the completed form and can always send it snail mail. But I hate it when garbage like that happens. Annoyances that are time consuming and just draining.

And it seems like it was a day full of that kind of stuff.

For the time being our only working phone is a tethered land line on the desk in the kitchen. That's the phone that used to be in my study, since land lines are what they like you to do interviews on since the sound quality is better. For some unknown reason our cordless phones stopped working. I thought Tianna had worn the batteries out, but when I replaced the batteries, they still didn't work. When I borrowed Erin's phone to try, despite working at her house, they didn't work at my place either, so we are stuck with and settling for the tethered land line. It does have the positive effect of keeping us off the phone. A plus. But anyway, it rang several times, and every single stinking time I bolted downstairs from upstairs to answer it it was a telemarketer. My name has apparently expired on the do not call list,and I haven't gotten around to changing it.

Then we went to make chocolate chip cookies and didn't have enough flour. We didn't find a neighbor home till the third try.

What else? Oh, the cat puked all over an antique chair. I heard the retching this morning and just groaned. Something else to vacuum. Tianna has been telling me for two days now that I need to vacuum since I knocked over half a jar of honey roasted peanuts and they have attracted a huge colony of ants.

And we now have a huge harvest of pears (the peaches are done) that are attracting fruit flies to my kitchen.

Then I tried to call a friend who is going to help me organize (once I can actually find the floors to all of my rooms) and her number wouldn't go through.

Then to top it all off, I found out one of the two publishers that was still considering my pregnancy and childbirth book decided to pass, even though they really liked the writing, because they just haven't had good luck with health books. So I am bummed.

And I am in a quandary about mulling over the job I interviewed for; what if they offer it to me? Will I take it? Is that wise? What do I need to give up to make time? Is taking a job, even a part time job counter productive to all the work I have been doing with my life coach to become less stressed and more focused? Arghhh...I just ended up feeling bummed out and frustrated.

Feel free to add your thoughts...and I'm dead tired to boot. But tomorrow will be better, right?