Bad luck. Bad day. Bad attitude?

Have you ever considered yourself bad luck? 

I have called myself that a handful of times in my life. This morning was one of those times. I decided early that I was going to run errands that I had been meaning to do all week. So around 9:00 a.m I got my three year old ready and made a list of things I needed to accomplish. We headed out in good spirits and made our way to the grocery store...(I even remembered to bring my reusable bags!)

Before we got to the store I needed to deposit a check into my bank account. But, much to my surprise (not really a surprise at all, I forget everything.) I forgot my debit card. Ergo, I could not put my check into the ATM. I was slightly annoyed, but I decided that my husband could just take care of it before he went to work, and moved on to my next task. We got to the store, and I went for my purse to dig out my quarter. (You need a quarter to release a shopping cart.) No quarter. I needed a cart and my toddler was ready to get out of the car. So, here I am digging through the spaces in my car looking for spare change. Once I found enough pennies...that's right, pennies, I went inside and asked for a quarter, went back out, got my cart and began shopping. Here I cannot really complain because there were no crowds and my daughter was great the entire time. But, once we got through the check out it was a different story. This store only took cash or debit. This was the card I didn't bring with me today, and I never have cash on me. So the woman, who could see the panic in my eyes as the line began to grow (where did all of these people come from?), told me she would suspend my transaction and moved my cart aside...so that way I could "go get cash out of the ATM". Which I couldn't do. Because I only had my credit card.

Bad luck, right? 

I went outside and called my knight in shining armor to come and save the day, but we live a couple of minutes away and he had to get our 18 month old ready...so I had no choice but to wait. As I sat there worrying about what all of those people were thinking...whether or not they were going to put my food away...whether or not my food was going to go bad...I could feel my entire body tensing up and I realized how sour my face had gotten. Right in that moment I decided that today was not going to be ruined by petty things I could not control. I thought of this verse: 

 "human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires."-James 1:20

You cannot twist that around any other way. I did not have a Godly mindset. 
After the Holy Spirit calmed me, I watched two women and a little boy walk up to the front of the store. One woman got her cart, but the other woman did not have a quarter to get a shopping cart. As they were digging through their purses an older couple came out and offered their cart to them in exchange for a quarter. The woman explained that she did not have a quarter, but she would give them a dollar instead. The older couple rejected the dollar, returned their cart and left with their quarter. This is probably something that would have upset me, actually it kind of did. (Hello? That is a three quarter profit!) But, the women held their postures well and went inside with only the one cart.

After my husband arrived, and we paid for our groceries, we noticed two carts just sitting in the parking lot. John (my husband) joked and said "Hey, look! free quarters!" I told him to start the car and went for the shopping cart. (In that moment, he probably thought I was actually going for the free quarter.)

I brought the cart inside and found the women. The cart they had was already full. I offered her the cart and apologized for eavesdropping on their conversation. She thanked me several times and her happiness was just simply contagious. I was joy-filled knowing I made her trip to the store slightly better than my trip to the store.

Now, I'm sure If I decided to sit in my stench of a bad mood, I would not have offered that woman a cart. I would have saw it in the parking lot and kept going on with my day and my rotten attitude. My day started out rough, but I ended up learning an important lesson with that. We cannot be the arms and feet of Jesus if we keep our feet still and our arms crossed.