the adventures of Sammy and a parking meter...

It stands fast, anticipating their return.
The speed of time, like a child expecting termoil;
Primarily tiresome... then it gets fierce.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick, tick, tick.
Mortals glide to their destinations with haste.
Among the crowd, Alas! they have returned;
fed it another token.
It had longer to count;
More life to live.
[source]

On wednesday, I had a very big, crazy, but a day that needed to be had.

I went to a bible study in the morning, and in general conversation, somebody pointed out to me that I really needed to make peace with somebody. At first I just wanted to crawl up into a little ball of shame, but I came to realise that this person had said this to me in love, and it was the words I needed to hear. I got into my car and felt God speaking to me about this, and I really just wanted to ignore it like I had been for well over a month, and think it would just go away. It clearly wasn't, and the fact that I would have to face the person in a few weeks, quite honestly, scared me.

The adventures with the parking meter started after I left bible study, and came into the city to do some odd jobs before going to a friends house. Usually I park in the coles car park, as it is free, and I can park there for 3 hours. But Bendigo is seemingly in a car park crisis, and there were no car parks anywhere! So after chugging up a lot of petrol, and getting out of the car park, I search the immediate area for a car park that I will have to pay for. Even then I have no luck, but I do manage to find one outside the warehouse nightclub, but it has a limit for fifteen minutes.

That doesn't matter, I thought to myself, as it swallowed my 50c peice (it was all I had!) and went to the Camera House for job #1: passport photo. I needed a new passport photo as my home made ones weren't adequate, and I needed to get them in the mail as the price for passports goes up next week by $7. I stand in the quewe for no longer than 30 seconds when I am sat down for a rather unglamorous passport photo. The man said come back in 15 minutes.

Dang, I only have parking for 15 minutes. Ah well, I devised a plan of action! I would go to word (most dangerous store ever), as I had lost my bible. This would kill some time, and then I would go straight to the parking meter, and put a bit more money in.

After selecting a new bible, finding out after I had paid for it that the 20%-off sale starts tomorrow, I look at my mobile and realise I had been in word for 20 minutes. I run two blocks back to my car to put in what change I had, which didn't even give the parking meter 15 minutes, and return to the Camera House to pick up my passport photos. I was there for about 15 minutes.

I also had to take a packet of chips to my friends house for the afternoon. I went back to my car to put more money (I asked for change, I now had an abundance of 20c peices) and ran over to coles. After not being able to find the chip aisle, I settled for a coles brand of shapes, then ran back to my car once again. Funnily enough, there was two minutes left on the parking meter.

I still had to post the passport photos, and I wasnt putting any more money in that meter. All of this commotion had given me a bit of a head ache. I went home and got a disprin and disolved it in some water (as I still am a sook and can't swallow pills), and while trying to drink this, walked around the corner to the post box to post the passport photos (I must have been the funniest sight in all of Bendigo).

Now, I told my friend I was going to be at her house at 12, it was now well past 1pm. I jumped in my car, and drove to her house, her trying to call me twice on the way.

Upon arrival, my friend explained to me that she felt incredibly dissapointed in me that I was so late, and told me I should have called her. At first I thought she was joking, but the seriousness in her voice hinted that she was actually quite annoyed. She later told me that the reason she told me, was because in the bible, it tells you to tell people when they do wrong against you.

There seemed to be a reoccuring theme here.

Later I was thereputically folding brochures with my friend Cara, and I told her about all of this, and said how I planned to make peace at a certain engagement party, she really put it out to me: why am I waiting until then?

Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

- Matthew 5:23-24

God is pretty passionate about being real and about reconciliation. He considers it so highly, that he says, "hey, don't offer me anything, go and make peace with your brother and then face me!" And I guess this has been sitting on my heart, in that, you try and pray, and give your offering before God, and you feel like you just can't because there's something weighing on your heart that you just need to fix.

And so yesterday, I decided to fix it. I sat at my desk and prayed about what to say, and God gave me all of these things and I wrote them all down and took them with me when I visited them, although, they are a pretty busy person, so I am going to meet up with them on monday. It's going to be interesting considering I haven't talked to this person in well over a month, and we used to see each other quite a bit.