Obedience

I was talking to my aunt on Tuesday this week about developing film. She suggested that when I go to Walmart to get my 3 rolls of film developed, that I should get them on CDs that way I am not paying for all of the doubles of any pictures that I may not want to keep. She said it only costs $3 for each CD and I was thrilled! I rushed right down to Walmart and asked a ton of questions about how all of this worked because $3 was just too good to be true. But, it WAS true! There was a new lady working there and she was the one who was taking care of receiving my film and writing everything down. I told her that in my mind I had pictured having each roll of film on a separate CD but if putting them all on one CD would be cheaper then I wanted to do that. She explained to me that one CD would definately be cheaper because it would only be $3 instead of $9. So, naturally, I decided to go with her advice and get all 3 rolls of film put on one CD. Each roll of film had 24 exposures and that would have given me 72 pictures on one disk! I was told they could do this in one hour but since they were so busy, she asked if I could give them another 15 minutes. So I spent an hour shopping around Walmart and a dollar store within the same shopping mall. I came back to find out that the machine wasn't working right and that they needed 20 more minutes. I thought, Ok, no big deal. I walked around more and came back to have the lady ask me if I could just come back tomorrow and pick up my CD then. I was sad about this but didn't let her know about it. I agreed to come back the next day about 2:00 or so.

So, after gettting off work the next day, I went to Walmart to get my CD. When I arrived, there was another new lady working there. She was the one who took my name and found my CD. She looked at the package really strange and then asked me if they had already explained things to me. I had no idea what she was talking about. She then showed me the price on the CD package. It honestly said $38!! I was shocked! I only make $50 a day cleaning houses for people. How can I afford nearly a whole day's wages for film??!!! This lady was not willing to work with me at all, even after looking at the initials of the lady who helped me the first day. I told her I didn't have $40 with me and she said "Well, you can come back tomorrow". I told her that I would be right back with more money. I then drove to the bank and cashed my $50 check that I had just been given and drove back to Walmart. I was so upset that I felt tears starting to come. I prayed and prayed to God and simply asked Him to make everything right. I told Him that I was going to pay the $40 bucks for the film and trust Him to take care of the situation. He told me I should go ahead and pay it but not to complain about the price at all. This sounded very hard to do but I agreed to obey.

When I went back to the photo lab at Walmart, there was yet another woman there working. I have delt with her in the past and found her to be very nice to deal with. She looked for my CD and when she found it, she looked really surprised and bothered about the price too. She also asked me if they had already explained things to me and I told her my original story. She listened with a great deal of care and told me to wait a second while she went back and did some figuring. I waited and waited. She then walked over and showed the CD package to the second lady I had talked to and said things I couldn't hear. While she talked to her, her face looked so concerned and even got a little red and embarrassed looking. She then came back to me and offered to re-do the CD all over again so I would only have to pay the $9 and get 3 different CDs. She said it would only take an hour. I stood there with $40 in my hands debating whether or not I wanted to wait another hour or spend $40. I heard God tell me that I needed to save my money and just wait one more hour. (Boy, I've heard Him say "wait" before!) So, I decided to have her re-do them and wait one more hour and only pay $9.

After telling her my decision, she then told me to wait a minute while she did some more figuring. So I waited while she walked back and used the calculator or something. She came back and asked me if I wanted to save time by just paying for the regular developing fee for one roll of film with doubles plus the $1.76 processing fee for all three rolls. Before I could answer, she was already calculating what the total would be. It came to $14.70 with tax! I smiled and said "I can do THAT." As soon as I said that, a man from my dad's church came up beside me to pick up his film. He recognized me and spoke. I then found out that he and the lady I just paid new one another. The guy was talking to me about bible study on Friday nights at 7:00pm at their church. He invited me and told me to make sure I invited my husband to come too. I thanked him and headed out to get in the car.

OK. Now let's suppose I had decided to do things my way instead of listening to God and doing things His way. I wouldn't have been so nice to those people at the photo lab and I would have contacted the manager and complained and there would have been a big scene. This is NOT what a follower of Jesus Christ would do. I am a Christian and that means I am an ambassador for Christ. I represent Him and He represents God. I never want to do anything to make them look bad to others. If I had behaved badly at Walmart, would anyone in the photo lab have wanted to become a Christian? NO! I would have been acting like everyone else in the world acts. As a Christian, we are suppose to be different than the world. To be different than the world is called "Holy".

Something else very encouraging about this situation is that the woman who was kindest to me in the photo lab has a wonderful name. Hope. How perfect?!


For future reference:

Anything over 40 photos on a CD is considered a reprint and costs .29 each! Make sure you get each roll of film on a separate CD!