Pam Padgett - teacher
This week I've been dealing with getting some stucco repaired around
new windows at my house. I contacted the company which initially
put the stucco on the house some years ago. I was very pleased with
the work they had done, and the people I dealt with seemed very
"friendly" to me.
But when I called about the stucco repair about six weeks ago, they
sent a man who didn't seem knowledgeable about what needed to be
done. He didn't inspect the stucco around the windows to determine
which needed to be repaired. Instead he asked me how many windows
were in the house. When I received the estimate, it was very high,
including repairing stucco around all of the windows (I knew this was not needed). Still
I continued working with this company.
I called Bertha, the woman I had
worked with when the stucco was initially put on the house (she and
her husband own the business) and told her the number of windows
I saw they would need to repair. She sent a revised estimate which
seemed reasonable to me, and I decided to proceed with the repair.
Bertha said they were scheduling about 1-1/2 weeks ahead, and that
they would let me know when the repair would be done. I signed and
returned the estimate, expecting to be called in about a week giving
the date my repair was scheduled.
Early this week I realized at least two weeks had passed since I
returned the signed estimate and I hadn't heard from this company.
So I called to make sure they had received it. When I called, Bertha told me
she had received this and that the man who would do the repairs was repairing my neighbor's house and would be at my
house that day or the next day, depending on when he
finished at the neighbor's house. I was shocked that she hadn't let
me know ahead of time about this, but having the repair done this
week worked fine for me, and while we were talking I ignored that
she hadn't let me know when this was scheduled.
But God has been working with me to be sober and live in truth recently. A little later that afternoon the Holy Spirit called my attention to the fact that she had told me she would let me know when the work was scheduled, but hadn't done this. I realized I was not sober about this
company and especially about Bertha who speaks in a very friendly
way. I started writing down what I was reminded of about the way this repair had been handled up
until this time. I hadn't been seeing this soberly at all! There
had been problems since the time the man came to give the
estimate.
The repairman did not come either the first day nor the next day.
The afternoon of the next day I called to see if he
was still expected to be here that day. I explained to the woman who answered the phone who
I was and why I was calling. She said I needed to talk with
Bertha. After a minute or two, Bertha answered the phone and said "Hi
Pam. Is he there?" I told her he wasn't and that I wanted to
know whether he would be here that day. She said she needed to talk
with him and would call me back. When she called back a few minutes
later she said the neighbor's repair was taking more time than
expected and she suggested he come to my house the following morning which was fine with me.
Later that afternoon I heard from the Holy Spirit that Bertha had lied to
me. She spoke as though she thought the repairman was at my house
asking "Is he there?". But the first woman I spoke with
would have told Bertha I was calling because he wasn't here. And I kept having the
thought that the repairman surely would have told Bertha when he
finished the neighbor's repair, although no one had said this to
me.
When I was telling Joan about this, going to lengths to say that I
didn't know for sure if the repair man would have told Bertha when
he finished at the neighbor's house. Joan pointed out that the
Holy Spirit had told me this. It doesn't matter if a person
had told me this, for the Holy Spirit had told this to me. The
Holy Spirit gives me truth. This is much more sure than if a
person had told me.
The repair man did come and while he was here, I saw him on his phone obviously
giving a report about the repair. After he left, I found a few
tools he had left behind and called the office so they could contact
him and let him know I would leave the tools on the porch. While talking with Bertha about this, she knew exactly where the repairman was, on his way
to another job, and even that another repairman was meeting him at that
job. She was kept informed of which job he was working on, as
the Holy Spirit told me.