Smoke

So yesterday a friend told me about a problem with her apartment building. Apparently the new tenant in the apartment below hers is a smoker. My friend is a severe asthmatic. Within a few hours after the new guy moved in she had to call 911 and spend the night in the hospital to straighten out her breathing. She has been trying to work with her landlord to get her heating and air conditioning unit fixed (since it is obviously pulling in air from his apartment to heat her home...and thus drawing in the smoke) which was going no where. Apparently they thought all breathing issues were smell issues, not "lungs closing up and suffocating" issues that could potentially leave her dead in her apartment alone (some people are a little...slow). They told her to put dryer sheets in her vents to mask the odor. Awesome.

While telling us her troubles, another friend mentioned that perhaps she could try talking to the smoking man. "Maybe he is trying to quit smoking and he needs a little extra kick-start." I remember looking at her with a puzzled look (if I could do an awesome one-eye-brow raise, it totally would have happened). I thought to myself, "That's insane. Why even put crazy ideas in this girl's head?"

Well this morning I got an email from my friend. In it she announced that she had spoken with the smoking man and guess what? (Like you even need to guess where this is going...) Smoking man was INDEED trying to quit smoking and was even already on medication to help him out. While my friend was standing in his doorway he collected all of his ash-trays and put them into the garbage. Apparently he did need a little extra motivation. The two of them bonded on their love for cats and a shared hatred for their land lord (apparently since he moved in he has had some troubles of his own with his apartment).

Lessons Re-Learned:
1. We are called to share God's love in real and practical ways.
2. Don't put my God in a box.
3. My God has a sense of humor.
4. My God is all powerful.
5. My God is awesome.