The yellow slip of doom

My postwoman is the most ungracious person on earth, and she angers me. (Just so you know, I'm having kind of an angry day, which is really rare. But when I have one, watch out.)

Every November this is what happens. I promise you. Every November since we've lived here, which means for the last 4 years, my mail volume quadruples because of the sickening number of catalogs I start receiving pre-Christmas, the box gets jammed full, I happen to skip a day or two of picking up the mail, and the next day I find a single, flimsy, yellow slip in the cavernous space.

The yellow slip says this: "Since you have apparently no respect for my fine work of delivering your mail, and could not bother yourself to retrieve it, I've gone ahead and removed it for you. Oh, and you'll have to go on a wild goose chase to get it all back. I hope you learn your lesson."

Not really. It really says this:
Postal Patron: Your mail receptacle is not condition to receive mail because... (check mark next to) BOX FULL.

First of all, I have an issue with the grammar, "...is not condition to receive". That's annoying already. Second of all, my door step is maybe fifteen yards from the box. Help me out, woman. Don't you ever get busy?? Leave it at my door once a year if the box is too full! (I get that she couldn't do that for every person who let their box fill up. She doesn't want to be an enabler. But I live in a neighborhood of seniors, who are literally at their boxes within ten seconds of the mail jeep departing. Trust me, I'm the only mailbox neglector.)

Then the slip says that they will detain my mail for 10 days at the region's central station, which is no where near my house. It is a giant postal office where you have to take a number and wait at least 20 minutes to ever get helped. There's a fun outing with the kids.

So I'm mad at her for giving me that stupid yellow slip today. I'm mad at her for saying, "Enough! I'm up to HERE with your mail and there is NO MORE ROOM for any more!"

But like I said, I had a mad day and it wasn't just because of the yellow slip.

Today, strangely enough (and God, I'm not laughing) I had it up to here too. I said ENOUGH. There is NO MORE ROOM in me for grace. None.

I'm DONE with being hurt by my husband. Being ignored by my children. Being treated like a maid and short order cook. I'm DONE with being invisible to them all. I have no more room for their careless words and bad choices. And suddenly, I'm the most ungracious person on earth. OK, postwoman and I tie.

It was not pretty. In all honesty, I've not made peace with this angst yet. I've not cleared my own spirit of the emotion. I will. But I do know in my mind one very, very important truth.

God never says ENOUGH! to me. He never bundles up all my mistakes and throws them in my face with a yellow slip. And right now, I'm going to allow that singular fact to be enough for me. That is what will rest my mind and soul as I go to sleep tonight, instead of dwelling on the day's craziness.

As for tomorrow, looks like we'll be spending it at the post office playing countless rounds of "Guess what I'm thinking of."

But between you and I, I'll be thinking of ways to put my shoulder into shoving my people's mistakes to one side, and making a little more room.