Always Two Sides

... to every story.

When Jim and I were living in a Mam (Mayan) village, we had no communication with the outside world.  With a desperately sick infant, we had no way to notify the housing coordinator that we would be making an emergency trip to the city to see a pediatrician.  (Later we learned where to find a telephone en route to the city, but at that point, we had no idea how to place a call.)

(not really "her")

After a long worrisome drive - nursing Timmy, cleaning up massive amounts of spit-up, and praying for a firm diagnosis (which we didn't receive until he was seven months old and still hovering around ten pounds), we arrived at the missionary base in Guatemala where we met...

... the housing nazi -slash- hostess godzilla.  She was an older woman who worked part-time in a position she was not suited for, at least not on this particular day.  Being a volunteer, perhaps she had missed all the orientation lessons on the vital need to remain flexible.  That particular day, she flew off the handle, and fussed at me for not "calling ahead."

I don't remember the precise words she spewed, but I do remember juggling the two babies and passing them off to Jim while I found a restroom where I burst into tears.  Finishing my cry I noticed what I hadn't noticed before - there was no toilet paper!  That led me to another tearful outburst.

Meanwhile I can only imagine what the poor overworked housing lady was experiencing.  She had no idea we lived several hours away without a single phone in the whole town.  She did not know that our baby was on the verge of dying from malnutrition and failure to thrive.  She could not have known how a kind word would have soothed my rattled nerves.  She might have suspected that anyone who came would surely want toilet paper, but I assume that was an oversight of the maids.

To this woman, I was the inconvenience that ruined her whole day.  Maybe I made her want to quit.  Maybe she thought all missionaries were thoughtless, uncaring, and self-centered.  Who knows what she thought?  I just know that she wasn't thinking of my needs, nor was I thinking of hers.

That happens sometimes.

Misunderstandings happen because two people are literally incapable of seeing the other side.  That's why we must always extend grace in hurtful situations.  Sometimes I'm the one who's wounded, sometimes I'm the one who does the wounding, and sometimes it goes both ways. 

Even on the mission field.

I was drowning, and she thought....