Ten or twelve years ago when I served
as a fulltime pastoral counselor at a moderately large church in central
Florida, I met the pastor of smaller congregation; also a part of our
denomination. Having gotten to know him we arrived at a joint decision for me
to present a child discipline seminar at his church.
Rev. V. seemed almost as excited about
the possibilities surrounding the seminar as I, and completely on his own he
asked the youth of his church to “door knob” hundreds of leaflets in the local
area; (which they subsequently did). As I recall I contacted a couple of nearby
radio stations, and they were also good enough to advertise the event.
You can imagine the time and effort I
expended to be sure the seminar was “just right,” including enlisting the aid
of a few members of my mentoring team. During the course of my counseling
career I had presented precious few seminars, and I looked forward to this one
a great deal.
The Saturday of the seminar finally
arrived, and to say the least, I was excited! When I arrived, the pastor and
his wife were waiting for me. The stage was set to my specifications, and over
the next half-hour my team members arrived.
Mike and Sheryl V. and I shared a bit
of small talk as we anxiously awaited our audience, and we set out some cold
cuts and juice on a table in the fellowship hall. In the meantime, my
volunteers brought in leaflets and other miscellaneous stuff from my car.
…And we waited,
(and we waited. And we waited).
(Every 2-3 minutes) I looked up at the
clock which hung on one side of the sanctuary.
1255PM. Ah, my first “contestant.”
“Well, hello! Glad to see you.”
1257PM. Yes! My second. “How do you
do? Sit anywhere you like.”
100PM – Nada
102PM – Zilch
105PM - Zero
107PM – Goose egg
I silently mused that we had 3x more
seminar participants than audience members! And my friend, that’s never good!
I nervously smiled and made my vast
congregation of two (2) ladies aware that I had no doubt the majority of our
audience were simply running late, and would show up at any moment.
Well, my readers,
…I was sadly mistaken.
115PM rolled around, and the same two
faces, (and n’er a one extra) which “filled” the sanctuary at 1257PM stared at
me.
I proceeded to make my dreaded
announcement.
“I’m sorry, ladies. It appears that
contrary to all our efforts to recruit a large audience today, it was not to
be. I thank you for making the effort to attend. I have some leaflets for you
over on the table there. And you’re welcome to share some refreshments with the
pastor and his wife, my team members and me in the fellowship hall.
…Thank you for coming!”
As I recall the two ladies immediately
stood, walked over to the display table, picked up a couple of leaflets, shared
a parting “thank you,” and walked out the door. (I was just as happy they
didn’t “hang around” for refreshments. I was already sufficiently humiliated).
There was nothing left to do but “sing
a hymn” and go home. The wind had figuratively (and almost literally) been
knocked out of me! I thanked my hosts, (of course they expressed their
regrets), walked slowly out to my faithful 1996 Nissan Sentra, and headed for
home.
As innocuous as some people might find
the foregoing scenario, I didn’t (find it innocuous). It had been important to
me. I had looked forward to it. I had given a great deal of time and effort to
it,
…and it took me two weeks to get over
it.
And for months, every time I thought
of the fiasco, that same feeling of embarrassment and false guilt overwhelmed
me. What had I done wrong? “I built it” so why hadn’t they came?
By this time I had been counseling for
a decade, had met with thousands of clients, and was, I believe, rightfully
proud of my work. However,
…God definitely knows how to humble
us.
He definitely has a sense of humor. Later,
much later, I found a way to laugh about the episode, and I discovered that
…God had already been laughing with
(though somewhat before) me.
(by William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary, Vol. 4)
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