A friend at Emory had dreamed about and saved for buying her first car — a Cadillac to be precise.  When she entered the dealership in Atlanta, she was shown into a salesman’s office to choose a car to test drive.  Without rising from his chair or removing his feet from the desk, he asked her, “Now little lady, honestly, do you think you can afford to buy one of my cars?”  She replied, “Mister, I may not be able to afford two but I sure as hell can afford one!”  

She sought a better salesman.

In 1977 I was told her Cadillac had been ruined in a wreck, but she was not seriously injured. I called her and said, “I’m so sorry to hear what happened. How are you doing?” She replied, “We’re all devastated and doing the best we can; the family is gathering together to meet his plane. I so appreciate your call..…”  I knew we weren’t talking about her car, so I just kept listening.

Her uncle, Bert Lance, was flying home after resigning as the director of the Office of Management and Budget for President Jimmy Carter. He had been accused of mismanagement while serving on the board of a bank in Georgia, and had resigned from OMB to avoid even a hint of scandal so soon after Watergate. (He was later found not guilty).

Three lessons I learned: 

1. If you call to ask about one thing and the other person wants to talk about something else, go with their topic; don’t insist on yours.  After all, it was Bert Lance who popularized the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
2. Serendipity is when you seek one thing and find something else, and God is involved in the difference.
3. Timing is everything.

How does my experience remind you of allowing the needs of the other person to steer a conversation? Who do you know who experienced a reputation slowly gained and quickly lost by trumped up charges?  How have you found serendipity in seeking one thing and finding another thanks to God’s involvement in the discovery?