Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Check In To The Grace Hotel

Image by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels.

As any traveller knows, hotel staff can make or break your stay.

Especially the staff at the front desk, because they set the tone immediately. Within minutes, you get the sense of whether your hotel stay will be a happy or problematic one.

Case in point: when I was very young, my family spent some time travelling in Europe.

We stayed in a beautiful country where the people happened to be sticklers for rules and regulations. While we enjoyed our time in this nation, dealing with officials who insisted on strict adherence to protocols and procedures, even for tourists, became a bit tiresome.

Then we landed up in the south of France.

We arrived at a hotel late at night, exhausted, and trudged up to the front desk. My father introduced himself and mentioned to the clerk what country we’d just arrived from. He then began fishing out the documentation he needed to register for our stay.

The desk clerk took one look at two weary travellers with a cranky toddler in tow (me!), and said,

“Relax. You’re not in that country anymore. Here’s your room key. Go get some sleep and we’ll deal with the paperwork in the morning.”

I think my Dad almost cried out of gratitude and relief.

Although we settled the bill with the hotel when we left, my Dad doesn’t remember us ever properly registering with them!

Isn’t that what God’s grace is like?

God accepts us before we’ve proven ourselves or filled out all the forms or ticked off all the boxes.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell · 2 Comments

We’re Here To Help

Image by An SiYu from Pixabay

Not far from The Faith Cafe, there’s a big-box home-improvement store. I had occasion to go there, and noticed the smiling greeter at the entrance.

He had a name-tag sticker on his apron that read, “Frank: Front End.”

I was both puzzled and amused.

Did the store managers figure that customers needed guidance determining which was the front end of Frank?

If I peered around to see Frank’s backside, would I see another sticker that read, “Frank: Rear End”?

Or maybe Frank needed a sticker on his apron to tell him which way to put it on, so he wouldn’t wear it back-to-front?

I giggled my way through the store until I finally realized that perhaps the sticker meant that Frank was responsible for covering the front end of the store. I felt a little sheepish at my mistake, but reasoned that the sticker could have been a little less confusing.

At another similar store I visited, the greeter had a name tag that read: “I’m George. I’m here to help.” That was much clearer. No mistaking what the employee was there for.

Then I thought, isn’t that what we believers are here on earth to do, too?

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

You Already Have What It Takes!

Shepherd using his staff to guide sheep
Photo by Jim Black on Pixabay

Have you ever thought that God could never use you in His service?

That you’re unqualified because you don’t have any special skills or talents?

Moses thought the same way.

God called him to lead the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, but Moses thought he wasn’t qualified to do so. He came up with excuse after excuse as to why he shouldn’t be chosen. He clearly felt that he didn’t have what it took.

But God can use us even when we feel ill-equipped. He takes us as we are and can use whatever we have at hand, no matter how meagre it seems.

In Moses’ case, God used a simple wooden stick.

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