It was Twerp Week on our campus. A couple of synonyms for twerp are “bird brain” or “nitwit.” Considering the purpose of the week, maybe someone thought it had been a nitwit who came up with the idea. Anyway, it was a tradition at our college.
It was a week in which the girls did not have to wait on a guy to invite them on a date – they could reverse the roles and ask a guy out. It was a jovial week and everyone got into the spirit of it.
And so it happened that a girl called our dorm asking for me. No cell phones at that time, so if you weren’t there, someone else would take a message and pass it on. A couple of guys from our floor received the call while I wasn’t there. They thought it would be great fun to pretend that they were me, and accepted a date for me. They laughed as they told me about it. The problem was, I already had a date for that night and they didn’t know who it was that had called. The only thing they could tell me was that she had a British accent.
That is how I became involved in a frantic search the next day. I couldn’t think of who it might be. Fortunately there were only two girls I could think of who had British accents. One was a girl from Boston. Hers was not a true British accent, but maybe someone joking around on the phone might mistake it for that. The other girl was from the Grand Cayman Islands.
Either one would be a surprise to me. I had nothing in common with the girl from Boston. She was an art student and I thought she was rather strange. The girl from Grand Cayman was an upper class man and I was a freshman.
It turned out to be the girl from Grand Cayman. I finally tracked her down in the library. Now came the embarrassing conversation of asking if she was the one who had called me, and if so, I couldn’t make the date she asked for because I already had a date on that specific day. I also had to quickly let her know that I was not just wanting out of the date, that I had nothing against her, and would happily go with her on another day.
I finally convinced her and she said she would call back with another date plan. Then we had to set up a special code so she could be sure she was connected to me this time.
We went out on our date. I don’t recall what the original date plan was, but it didn’t compare to what we actually ended up doing. She took me to the Ice Capades in Indianapolis. What a special treat!
In the Bible, Joseph’s brothers had a grudge against him. He was favored by his father and given special treatment. His brothers were older than him and they resented it. They wanted to kill him, but settled instead for selling him as a slave to Egypt. Then the brothers pretended to their father that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.
Joseph suffered in Egypt. He went through various difficult trials before he was finally recognized as a very capable man – a man upon whom God had placed His hand. Joseph eventually rose to a position of power within the government.
One day, to avoid starvation, Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt for help. Joseph recognized them. He could have taken revenge on them. Instead he recognized that God had placed him in the position he now had to help his family. He chose to help and love instead of retaliating.
My friends knew they had put me in an awkward situation. They did it on purpose. They didn’t know it would turn into an opportunity I would never have had on my own – the Ice Capades. It did embarrass me to start with, but turned into something good.
When things don’t go well or when others have purposefully put you in a bad spot, remember, be faithful in doing what you should – it might not turn out so bad.
– Just a Thought Dale Fillmore is lead pastor at New Day Church.
