grace proved by guns

It's time for me to tell a story.
This is a story of something that occurred at work (Spring Hill Camps-Indiana) just yesterday.
When I think of this event, this story I am a bit horrified.  More than a bit actually.  I'm also embarrassed and frustrated.  It makes me feel like I'm really bad at my job.  I feel ill equipped to do what I'm asked to do and unable to take care of the things that I'm responsible for.  But...I'm going to practice a skill I learned from my very first boss, Jerry Suter.  I'm going to at the positive parts of this event, look for the good things that came from it.  I have to look at the positive side or this event, strung along with a bunch of other things that have happened this summer and fall, will crush me.

It all began by being partially in charge of firearms check-in for a Men's Retreat.  It was insane.  I spent the whole time chuckling to myself because of the irony of it all.  Me and one other girl (Tracy) were in charge of this.  The two people on camp that quite possibly know the very LEAST about guns.  I stood there with bugged-out eyeballs looking at the guns.  Hearing brands and words I have never heard before.  AR-15, Beretta, Muzzleloader...these were some of the unfamiliar words uttered to me.  Okay, I've heard of a muzzleloader but it seemed like such an odd thing for a man to bring to camp.  But these men would hand us their guns, sometimes in no case at all, and we would assure them that we would lock them up and they would be waiting for them at the range the next day, and then safely locked up again.

Then, that night I had to organize all of these things.  We have 3 ranges on camp.  Trap, archery, and riflery.  I had to somehow take these words that were unfamiliar and foreign and use them to figure out where these guns needed to go.  Lets just say...I learned a lot about guns in a 5 hour time span.  During this process I had the help of another girl on camp (Jess) who proceeded to google these words that were meaningless to us both, to help me figure out what was what.  We finished that up and locked the site office that now held thousands of dollars worth of firearms.  I went to bed praying that no one would have a psychotic break and decide to shoot up the whole camp.

Now lets fast forward to Sunday, the day these men left.  Surely none of them would want to leave without their guns, so Tracy and I spent half an hour towing guns from the lodge to a tent near the parking lot.  One man came up and I asked his name.  After he told me I pointed him to the area of the table that his firearm was.  Trouble is...he came with firearms.  Plural.  Not just the one that was on the table.  He said something to the effect of "Yes, I see my something (idk what he said) but I don't see my Beretta."  Upon hearing the word Beretta my mind starts spinning.  I have no idea what that is.  Is that a rifle?  A shotgun?  I have no idea!  And since I'm one of the people running this whole gun check-in/check-out process surely I can't let him know I have no idea what he's talking about.  Even though I'm sure it was written all over my face.  So I think well, I retrieved the shotguns from the range so I'm sure there are none there.  He must be talking about a rifle.  Because I didn't take the rifles.  So we decide that I will get into his car and he will drive me to the range, I will inspect the shed and we will find his gun.

So his car...its a BMW.  Surely worth more than the sum total of all of my student loans.  I get in the seat and instantly it hugs me.  We start driving off and in a lovely bell like tone, his car tells me I should really put my seatbelt on.  Its not annoying and screaming.  Its providing a nice, friendly reminder.  This car is nice.  Luxurious.  We start driving and where does he head to...the trap range.  Wait a second.  I took the guns from here last night.  And I was here in the morning and there were no guns.  I know this will be a fruitless effort.  I'm sure of it.  What do I do?  We stop, I unlock the Trap shed, and we both look in it finding no firearms at all.  Which I was fully aware was going to happen.  So I tell this man who was growing more concerned, "Lets go back to the lodge.  I'll look in the office where we were storing the guns."  Which I knew for a fact was also empty.  Sometime in this process he tells me he was reluctant to even check-in his Beretta.  The more he talked about it the more I was starting to realize that this is no Winchester rifle meant to shoot farmyard pests like groundhogs.  This is a shotgun and it is worth a lot of money.  Crap.  Where is the world is this mans gun, I wonder?

We go to the office.  Its not there.  That leaves one place.  If it is not there, surely I will be forced to empty the entire contents of our gun safe, give them to this man, and still, I will owe him $500, or more.  But this last place is not a good option...its the bed of a truck.  The bed.  Which is exposed to all of the elements.  Wind, rain, dew.  We walk to the truck and its there.  I have mixed emotions.  Relief, yes but also terror.  This man has been following me through this whole journey.  He knows his gun was in the bed of a camp truck.  His beloved Beretta that is probably worth more than the truck it was in!  He says to me, "Was it left out here all night?"  He asks this as a child whose parent forgot to pick them up from school asks. "Did you forget about me?"

My answer is honest, but uttering it is painful.

"Yes."

The disappointment on his face is plain to see.  I quickly grab some paper towels to wipe the spots of dew off the case.  This is bad.  This is really bad.  Whats the quickest way to ruin a gun?  Rust.  How is a gun exposed to this rust?  Sitting out all night in southern Indiana humidity.  I am horrified.

I ask him to look at it and he doesn't want to.  He didn't want to see the effects of this night outside in front of me.  But then he thinks if there is currently any visible damage he should probably show me.  He opens it up and it looks okay.  But he says. "The bad thing about rust is that it doesn't show up right away."  Horrified.  I. am. horrified.

He starts talking about our gun check-in procedure.  He explains that it could, and should be better.  Especially when men are bringing guns that are worth multiple thousands of dollars.  To which I agree. I completely agree.

I say I'm sorry profusely.  I am so sorry this happened.

He eventually says, "I know.  But God is good.  No matter what happens God is good.  Even if it is ruined, God is good."  I feel a little bit of relief.  I agree.  And I am thankful this man feels this way because he could be responding in such a different way.  He could be yelling, screaming at me, but he isn't.  He is disappointed, thinks this never should have happened, but he is kind.  He is gracious.  He puts his gun in his trunk knowing that the fate of its condition will pan out later.  He asks if I would like a ride back to where I was.  I say no.  I want this event to be over.  I want to get away from this man because I am so ashamed at what I had done.  I want to walk back but he says, "No, come on.  Get in the car, let me give you a ride.  I'm not like that."  He knows I feel terrible.  I walk to his car and get in it fighting back tears.  He explains that he wants this to be a teachable moment.  That improvements need to be made.  But he shows me one thing...grace.  So much grace.

So this weekend, grace was proved to me.  The grace of a man following the Lord.  And the grace of God. (Someone could have taken this gun-a greedy man or a middle or high school kid that was also traipsing around camp could have found it and hurt themselves or someone else, we could have had a monsoon of a rain storm which just days earlier, was the case, but these things didn't happen because of grace).
God is Good.  And he shows us grace every day.  Even when our pride doesn't allow us to see it.  He puts moments and events and stories in our lives to teach us more about him and ourselves.
This weekend I saw grace.  And all of it was proved through guns.