Do you ever get really upset cuz things seem to be going the exact opposite of the way you wanted them to go, and you look for the good in the situation and can't find any, cuz the thing that's going wrong should be something God wants to go right? So you resign yourself to the fact that He's trying to teach you patience and that things won't always go the way you planned and that's why heaven will be so grand. Well, that's what I was doing Friday afternoon. I ordered some guitar strings that I was going to use to replace mine because they were LITERALLY falling apart. Literally. No big deal, right? Well, I was going to order them from Amazon, cuz that's what I normally do (ok, I've actually only replaced them once in four years, and that was three years ago), but then I decided to get some picks at the same time, and Amazon didn't have the ones I wanted. Soooo, Google helped me find this amazing website that did which ALSO ended up having free shipping and a 2-7 day delivery guarantee. This made me quite happy because I wanted to replace those strings before they broke on me (plus, their quality was really poor by this point), and I was playing at a retreat at Barakel a week and a half later and needed to be sure to have them.
Obviously, you can see where this story is going. Wednesday was the latest delivery date for them, but Wednesday also happened to be the day we got dumped on with the blizzard of the decade. So I held my breath for Thursday aaaand...nope, no strings. The really frustrating thing was that I was supposed to have a tracking number for the package which my confirmation email said was shipped through UPS, but when I tried to click on the confirmation number link to track it, it took me to the USPS website, and neither website had any record of my package.
Friday came and I NEEDED those strings. All day I kept checking the front porch for a package, but sadly, opening the front door every five minutes didn't make the package appear. All day long I kept telling God that I was leaving at three and needed those strings so I could serve Him with BEAUTIFUL music, and all day, I also began preparing myself for the moment I knew I would have to leave and accept that God was teaching me patience, and the undependability of man's word, but the faithfulness of His and how great it will be in heaven some day to not have to wait for new instrument strings to be delivered so I can best praise Him.
I THOUGHT the best ending to the story would be getting all our luggage loaded into the car and beginning to pull down the driveway, but being stopped by a delivery truck at the end of our driveway, but God actually had a better ending for me. Not only did I learn patience and get a reason to look more towards heaven, I also got a bit more. Sunday after I returned from the retreat (and still no strings), I called the company who found a DIFFERENT tracking number and told me the strings had been in Lansing an entire week before. Hmmm. The lady I spoke to told me they must've gotten lost in the mail, and that she'd send me some new ones free of charge with overnight shipping for my inconvenience, although it hadn't been their fault. That was really, really cool! BUT that's not the end of the story.
Today, my dad brought me in a package from the mail from that company-the first package that was in Lansing almost two weeks ago. Sooo, I called the company letting them know that I now have two packages of strings and two packets of picks. Here's the cool part-I get to keep them for free! Thank you, God! He worked out a better ending than I could've imagined. Now I have an extra set on hand in case something happens to these, and I don't even have to pay for them! God is so good!
This morning when I went to replace the strings, two of my bridge pins snapped, so I have to replace them. (I was pretty upset at first cuz I didn't know if I could get replacement parts, and I didn't know how to get the rest of the pins that had snapped off halfway inside the guitar out, but my dad was able to get them out with a SPOON, and I found some higher quality ones for a cheap price.) I chose to use the same wonderful company. They said the pins are backordered one day, but they should arrive and be able to be sent out within two days. It's ok if they don't though, cuz if God has another lesson to teach me in patience, I think I'm even more ready to learn!
