Tender Mercies

July has it in for me. The whole month. As of today, i have officially disowned July as my birthday month. Because no month that is attached to such a wonderful occasion as a person's entry into this world would ever do this to me. In fact, these last few weeks have been nothing but an experiment in the elasticity of my sanity.  But i guess when your month starts out with waking up to a strange man standing in your apartment, it doesn't exactly bode well. That sanity i just spoke of....it almost failed me today. completely.  Luckily i was saved at the last second...but i'll get to that later. You see, last night my walk-in cooler at work went out again. The 4th time in 3 weeks. And so last night found me, yet again, moving all of the food out of it, stuffing it into the makeline and coke cooler and shipping the rest of it off in shifts to another store. To say that i am annoyed at this process is an understatement. I left work at 2 something and had to be back at 9 a.m. I knew i had the whole cooler thing to deal with so i was already counting on it being an interesting day.  After a 4 hour nap, i woke up to find a voicemail from my opening driver explaining that he was sick and couldn't make it in. Nice. I tried to call a few drivers but to no avail...dread for the day was already starting to build up at this point.  Luckily one of my drivers answered and agreed to come in early to cover, which made me feel a little better. (the driver that had called in did call back to make sure i had gotten his message, and upon hearing the stress in my voice came in anyway despite not feeling well.) This feeling was short lived, however, because as i backed out of my driveway (i made sure i looked...the hedge makes it very hard to see) i suddenly heard a giant thud against my car. looking frantically around and seeing nothing, i glanced in my rear view mirror and saw a bicycle wheel scrunched against my rear windshield. Panic set in as i thought the worst...what if i had hit a child? Already starting to cry, i threw my car in park, jumped out and ran to the back of my car. There i found a grown man, my neighbor, on the ground. His wife (who had been reading on their porch and heard the noise) was already sprinting across their yard towards us. Another neighbor working out in his yard was also running across the road. As i began to apologize and ask the man if he was hurt, all three of them began yelling at me.."are you crazy? don't you know how to look when you *&%$# back up? You just hit a cyclist. What the *&^%$ were you thinking?" Completely shaken up by what had happened, i tried to blink through the tears and tirades and focus on the man i had hit. I again asked him if he was hurt. He replied he was fine, jumped up, said some nasty words to me and rode on towards his house. I asked his wife if we should call someone and she said "no, we know where you live. We'll find you if we need to." The neighbor across the street apparently didn't feel done yelling at me despite my tears, apologies and explaining that i didn't see him when i had looked (he had come quickly around the corner on the sidewalk near my driveway after i had looked that direction and proceeded to back up...not to excuse myself, i'm just sayin...) I yelled back that i understood the situation and did not need his input to make me feel any worse. He glared at me then went back to his yard. I stood there for a moment, crying, mouth agape at what had so quickly occurred and called my mom (because, you know, moms have that way of making everything better). My first thought was that the people were going to try to sue me, since they didn't hang around to have any type of conversation about what happened. So I went to their door and knocked. nothing. i rang the bell. nothing. Then I called the police on myself. The officer showed up, i told him what happened, did the whole info swap thing and then he went to their door. Of course they answered for him. After about 10 minutes he came back out and told me the man had said his bike was fine. His ankle was a little jacked up and already wrapped and had ice on it, but he refused medical services when the officer asked him. The officer told me that they seemed surprised i had called the police, but that i had done the right thing. He explained that because i had filed the report, I was now protected if they later tried to sue me for medical bills because they refused help and fled the scene first. I felt better, mainly because Mr. Officer here was incredibly cute (hey, it made my mood a little better) and nice. And the neighbor across the street came back to apologize to me for yelling. He said that clearly i was upset and his yelling didn't help anything. No sir, i assure you it did not. We shook hands and i was on my way to work. I won't lie...i cried all the way to my store. I was late, my store was outta whack because of the walk-in...yeah those first several hours were rough. Finally i had gotten more calm. In the afternoon, the repair guys came and fixed my walk-in, so i began trying to get all the food back into there, started trying to coordinate drivers to go pickup the food that was at the other store (several trips...ugh), etc. And of course, right then the food truck pulled up to deliver my next shipment. I was not ready. At the same time, we started getting very busy. and then up came the stress level again and I started to lose it this time. I wonder what it would look like to walk into a food place and see the person running the store sobbing while they make pizzas and answer phones. Because that was what was going down at my store today. All the stress of this past month had finally hit its pinnacle. I thought i was going to break...or walk out. And was about to that point where i could not take any more for one more second when my cell phone rang. I looked at it and saw it was my brother Joseph. Because Joseph doesn't call me that often due to his busy schedule, i wanted to answer despite being busy. When i said hello, however, instead of my brother's voice i heard the sweet sweet voice of his 2 1/2 year old daughter Claire. "I love you Jill, I miss you Jill" Then she sang (without even knowing about my mood) "if you chance to meet a frown, do not let it stay. Quickly turn it upside down and smile that frown away."  At this point, i was weeping. I want you all to know...Claire never calls me. Its been over a year since i've seen her and she only remembers me by pictures. Even when i talk to Joseph and he tries to get her on the phone, she rarely gets on to talk to me. And here she was, giving me the most precious gift of her sweet voice and song at exactly the moment i needed it. After she was done, she handed the phone back to her dad. We talked a few minutes about some beach stuff (only 3 more weeks!!!!) and then he told me, "sorry to bother you, but Claire insisted we call you right now." And in that moment i knew....I was receiving a tender mercy from the Lord. I know we all believe different things, but let me tell you this. I think the Lord knew what i needed in that moment. And that little girl was the answer. For whatever reason, she knew she needed to call her Aunt Jill. And i could not be more grateful.  My mood picked up considerably after that. Then my friend Stefanie stopped by to order pizza and give me a much needed hug. At the end of the shift, a GM (and friend) from another store stopped in to kidnap me. I had vented to her earlier in the day, and she felt i needed a drink. (don't worry, it was sans alcohol). It was nice to just sit and relax and enjoy my virgin strawberry daiquiri with someone that cared enough about my day and my sanity to take me out. As stressful as this month has been for me, there have been those tender mercies along the way just like those today to give me strength and remind me that God is mindful of me. And that I am loved.