Embassy of Unnamed Country

Madrid, Spain
GG’s Birthday!

We arrived at the Embassy. The door to the consulate was locked. We walked around to the other door, it too was locked. Immediately the door opened and out walked a woman who looked to be responsible for cleaning the building. In my broken Spanish I explained we were there to get a visa. “They closed at 12:30,” was her reply. I asked the time and we learned it was 12:34. I couldn’t believe it. We had been traveling for over two hours to get there. We had spent the whole morning trying to get things together to get there. We had gotten lost twice and we had missed it by four minutes.

The woman turned, opened the door and invited us in. I was shocked, yet thrilled. She spoke to the woman at the front desk whose response I didn’t need to translate. I knew our chances were dwindling. The kind woman disappeared and returned. She brought me four copies of the visa application. We sat and I wondered if maybe they would have mercy on these tired travelers.
The door opened and in walked a man who obviously had clout at the Embassy. The woman at the desk began explaining to him why we were there. He spoke to me and I explained that we were traveling for six months and had several visas to obtain and could not afford the time before we left the U.S. to mail in our passports for the visas.

I didn’t get far into the story. He simply said, “We close at 12:30.” The conversation was over.
Every drop of my American blood wanted to argue. My mind came up with all the arguments…. Did he understand how difficult it was for us to get there? Did he know how much money we were going to pay for this visa? Shouldn’t he be grateful we were going to spend time in his country? God ever so gently reminded me that I have been praying for Him to make me humble and I realized this was an opportunity to walk out that prayer. I purposely closed my mouth so that nothing would come out of it. When I knew it was safe, I opened my mouth to confirm that we could come back the next morning to apply. I thanked him and the two women for their time and we left. I wanted to cry. We had planned to leave town that afternoon. We had planned to do some sightseeing. Our luggage was checked at the train station and we had only the clothes on our backs.

The boys and I talked about what had happened and what our options were. Suddenly I knew what we had to do. We threw every plan out the window. We booked a room at a local hotel. For whatever reason God did not want us leaving town today, we would trust in Him and make the best of it.

We had a lovely lunch, stopped by the local store and bought a deck of UNO cards. We spent the rest of the day playing UNO in the lobby and taking turns having a nice hot bath in the great big bath tub in our hotel room. We witnessed to the hotel staff as we interacted with them.
I prayed that night that God would give us an opportunity to witness to the man of clout. The next day in the same clothes we wore the day before; we applied for the visas and caught the evening train.

I would love to be able to say we met the man of clout and witnessed to him or that we had a supernatural encounter with one of the hotel staff. But the reality is nothing out of the ordinary happened. The truth is this incident was all about me and my willingness to walk in humility. Was I willing to honor one in authority even when it meant a total rearrangement of our lives? I’ve prayed mightily for over seven months now for God to teach me humility. It is a lesson that I am having a hard time learning. God had given me an opportunity to grow in humbleness. It wasn’t the first opportunity, but it was the first that I felt good about how I responded. There have been many others where I failed miserably.

As of this writing, there is still some question about how and when we will pick up the visas. Who knows, maybe God will still use us with the man of clout. If not, I know that God used the man of clout to remind me that my role is to follow Christ in being humble before those in authority.
Scripture---God has put those in authority to rule over us