It pays to pay attention.

My building transitioned this weekend from gas to electrical drying, in a process not yet complete, leaving us momentarily without a place to wash our clothes.

So we went to the closest neighborhood laundromat for the first time.

It will probably also be the last.

It’s 24 hour. Every machine we used worked well.

A Yelp Review I read described it as a “big clean laundromat with very nice staff.” Normally I spend a second comparing reviews. Under the circumstances, it was good enough for me. I probably should have read further.

To their credit, they were right on the big. I could see the argument for clean. I have used dryers where the person before me seemed to have dried a poodle. That was not the case here. The staff was nice enough. The wash cycle was only like 24 minutes. I felt like we were ahead of the game.

But a deeper dive post-visit yielded a bunch of reviews about rudeness, roaches, and theft of clothes. One woman reported theft of underwear, but only her expensive underwear, and only in one color. It seemed way too random a gripe to be made up. It seemed way too specific an infraction to be a mistake.

And there were dozens of these. 26 one star reviews out of 137. Enough where you start questioning if the positives you read were the company to boost its score.

While we were there, however, I sat down to be across from Lori

And an unassuming woman with brown hair, glasses, and a small voice said, “could you move down one? I was going to sit there.”

It seemed a slightly odd request as there was no difference between the two seats.

But I had no investment in the situation, so I said sure, and moved over.

And we moved our things to give her a little room.

And she said “what nice people.”

She said a few other things that also seemed a little odd, but I didn’t give it much more thought.

She seemed very gentle. Maybe on the spectrum. Maybe a cognitive disability.

I couldn’t tell. I was just trying to share the space.

And then her phone rang.

And she picked up, and said.

"Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh.

DO YOU _THINK_ I’M PLAYING WITH YOU?

I WILL KILL YOU!"

She said several other things.

She used some memorable language.

And I found myself marveling at just how badly I had read her by not paying attention to the information I was getting.

Something seems strange here. But I’m not invested in it. That’s all I need to know.

It was not unlike the way I ended up at the laundromat in the first place.

I have a need. This one review speaks to it. That’s all I need to know.

Beloved, I’m not sure anything is ever “all we need to know.”

Jesus says, in John 16:13 that the Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of Truth”, who “will guide us into all truth.”

The information we have is almost never comprehensive, because our perspective is limited.

God knows things we don’t and is constantly revealing them to us.

Now, on this day, none of this was consequential.

No-one stole our underwear.

No-one attempted to murder us.

We got clean clothes and got them relatively quickly.

But God uses even the most mundane moments to teach us to pay attention. Learning to listen and obey will always pay off. Because later on there will be more critical tests, where you will need to respond without having all the information.

It's great to know.

It’s greater to trust God without knowing.

I pray today that we would hear God and respond quickly.

I pray we would wear the garments of praise that express our trust, and not the grave clothes that reflect our past disappointments, that we would not allow our experience with people color our relationship with God.

God never has mixed motives; people do

God never has bad information; people may

God will never fail us; people will.

I pray we would look to God first, last, and always.

Travelling mercies beloved.

Don’t forget the fabric softener.

(Photo Credit: Adrienne Andersen)