The Law of the Garbage Truck

An email I got recently that I thought was good to read more than once....


One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in
the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in
front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other
car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and
started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I
mean, he was really friendly. So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy
almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxi driver
taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.' He explained that
many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of
frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles
up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't
take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take
their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.
The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over
their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so.....
'Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't.' Life is ten
percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!

Don't miss the blessings....

Many of you know that our car broke down on our trip to Sacramento. It was one of those moments in life where I felt the panic and stress begin to well up inside me and fortunately it only took a few minutes of talking to Jason for us both to realize that it wasn't necessary. It was inconvenient... for sure, it was expensive... unarguably, it was character testing...for certain, but not a reason to stress. It didn't take long for us to kick into solution mode and call our parents and other resources and get a plan in motion. Jackson of course had a typical 3 year old's solution.. "Let's just go buy a new car." Aren't problems easy to solve when you are young? During our two plus hour wait in the Shell station parking lot we had enough time to verbally begin to list all that we had to be thankful for... we broke down in an area we were familiar with so I wasn't concerned for our safety, we broke down in a parking lot and not in the middle of the freeway. It happened during the day and not in the last few hours of our trip which would have fallen late at night. It happened close enough that our extended family (who are so generous and caring) were able to rescue us and give us a place to stay and a reputable mechanic to solve the problem. Just over a week before we were on our trip to Wisconsin with Jason's family where the timing would have been a lot more complicated and caused more problems to resolve (hotels already paid for, schedules to meet, etc.). I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Although it was a trial of sorts we could see God's hand in it, and how He helped us through it. We both KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that our own natural character would have sent us spewing expletives and ranting about how put out we were and how unfair it was. We were able to see that God has made some progress on us over the last few years and we were grateful for that as well! Don't worry we know we have plenty of other things to work on! :-) We were so looking forward to our trip that when we found out it would be a week before the car could be fixed (broken intake manifold) I shed a few tears and my husband came up with the idea of renting a car and going on as planned. We did and had a great time visiting family and picked up our car on the way home. The mechanic wanted us to have the car looked at again when we got back by the shop that did the work that he thought caused the problem. We did and now it is all good! We received a lot of blessings and prayers and we felt very cared about through the whole ordeal. It was a deviation from the original plan and yet everything worked out pretty smoothly. So the next time it feels like something is ruining your day or your plans step back & take a second look and don't miss the blessings!!