At 5:40AM on the last morning of the last day of my last weekend before life as I know it is over, the smoke detector in our cozy and quaint hotel room went off. The alarm was not one of those sporadic chirps that kindly nudges the resident to change the batteries. Rather, it was a high-pitched, high-volume, horrific horn repeating angrily in our seemingly shrinking room.
Matt peeked into the hall to assess the situation. The hall was quiet and empty, as hotel hallways should be when the sun is still asleep. There was no sign of smoke or fire or any other such substance to trigger an alarm.
I picked up the phone to call the front desk, when suddenly the detector stopped.
“Hello,” said a man on the other end of the phone.
“Oh, hi, yeah, this is room 344, and our smoke detector just went off, but I guess it stopped,” I tried to explain despite feeling groggy and dazed.
“Oh, okay,” he replied with a tone that communicated, “so what,” and then he asked, “Do you want me to come up there and take out the batteries?”
Realizing that he was not at all concerned for our safety, my lack of sleep or even the possibility of a fire, I rolled my tired eyes and said no thank you and that we would try to go back to sleep.
Matt returned to bed, falling asleep just as quickly as we had been stirred, and I closed my eyes, realizing back-to-sleep was nowhere in my future.
With the sun soon rising, I got up, got dressed and headed downstairs to find the only remedy to the situation: coffee. I knew that the hotel cafe would not open until 7am, and though our room included in-suite coffee making accouterments, I did not want to wake my now snoring husband.
In the lobby, I stopped at the front desk but found it to be empty. However, I could hear rustling coming from the nearby hotel cafe. I walked in that direction and discovered an employee already busy at work.
“Excuse me, any chance you have coffee ready? The smoke detector in our room just went off, and I can’t get back to sleep,” I said with a mix of doubt and hope.
“Yes, I actually do have some ready,” my new best friend, the coffee man, said confidently.
JACKPOT!
I pulled out my credit card as he walked over to the computer. “Oh,” he shrugged, “I actually can’t ring you up. The system is still booting. It’s going to be closer to 7 before I can sell coffee.”
“Oh bummer,” I said with nothing but doubt in my voice, “Maybe you could still sell me the coffee? I promise I won’t go far, and I will come back at 7 and pay you.”
“Sorry, I really can’t do that,” he said with a tone of doubt in my promise.
“Well shoot,” I said, filtered. “You know what, I have cash in my room. I’ll head back up and get cash. Would that work? How much is a cup of coffee?”
“Yeah, cash should work,” he shrugged. “It’s $3.67.”
A wee bit irked that he didn’t offer me a cup of coffee via the honor system, I walked back toward the lobby. This time I noticed someone at the front desk.
“Hi, can I help you?” said a recognizable voice. It was the man I was on the phone with 20 minutes earlier when the smoke detector was detecting absolutely nothing.
“Hey, yeah, I’m the one with the smoke detector issue. Any chance you have coffee? I wasn’t able to fall back asleep, but the cafe won’t sell me coffee because his system is still booting,” I said with a mere tinge of hope.
The man behind the desk began rummaging through drawers. I realized he was trying to find an extra coffee packet, like the ones in my hotel room.
“Oh, I don’t want to make coffee. My husband is sleeping, and I was hoping not to wake him since we had the smoke detector issue. He fell back asleep but not me. I didn’t know if you had some coffee already made up,” I tried explaining.
“Oh, I see,” he replied, finally understanding my dilemma. “No ma’am. Sorry. I don’t have any coffee.”
“Okay,” I said, disappointed. “I told the guy working at the cafe that I would go up to my room and get cash. Any chance you could just charge it to my room?”
“No, I really can’t do that,” he said with the same lack of concern he offered over the phone 20 minutes earlier.
“Okay, I guess I’ll just go get my cash,” I responded, now beginning to feel peeved.
“Oh yeah! That’s a great idea,” he chirped with the kind of delight one shares when they know the discomfort they are presently enduring is about to be over.
Feeling dismissed, overlooked and very much irked, I left the front desk and started toward the elevator. Frustration rising, I decided against the elevator and went for the stairs. My frustration had turned to anger, and I was hot. I needed a way to release my fiery energy.
As I stormed up the stairs, I began an internal email that I was determined to send.
DEAR HOTEL MANAGER.
Today I was rudely startled from a very deep slumber because of your hotel’s deceitful, lying smoke detector, and when I asked the on-site cafe and front desk person for a measly cup of coffee - COFFEE THAT WAS BREWED AND READY TO BE SERVED - neither one offered to just give me a cup. A CUP OF COFFEE. YOUR HOTEL WOKE ME UP BEFORE THE CRACK OF DAWN, and all I wanted was a cup of coffee and no one would give me one. And now I am storming through the halls of this dumb hotel at 6 in the morning ON THE SABBATH because your dumb people could not give me a dumb cup of coffee even though your dumb smoke detector IS SO DUMB.
That was the filtered version.
I kept thinking, if this were Disney, the Fairy Godmother would have appeared 20 minutes ago with the most exquisite cup of freshly ground, freshly brewed, twinkle-dust infused coffee, and she would have served it to me right there in bed while she bippidi-d and boppidi-d and THAT IS HOW YOU DO HOSPITALITY, you big dummies.
Instead, I was back in my hotel room, digging through my purse in the dark. I finally found a $5 bill.
Still filled with the internal email that I was determined to send, I grabbed my laptop before heading back out the door. Huffing and puffing and fiery mad, I walked down the hallway, down the stairs and to the cafe where I slapped my $5 bill on the counter.
“Do you want a medium or a large? $5 covers both,” said Mr. I-have-coffee-and-you-don’t.
“A medium cup of coffee is just fine,” I said through a clenched jaw.
He took my money, poured my coffee and handed it to me.
With a mumbled, “thanks,” I left the cafe and headed out the door of the hotel.
I had an email to send.
It was now shortly after 6am. The sun was rising, and the sky was filled with a cotton candy mix of color - blush, melon, turquoise and lavender. I found a nearby bench where I could sit, sip my coffee and type. It was time to give someone a piece of my mind.
I continued to formulate the just-right words in my head. I decided to take an “I’m not looking for anything in return, I just want to offer a bit of hospitality advice” approach. I envisioned the hotel manager sending me a profuse apology before berating his staff and later incorporating my email and the learned lesson into future staff trainings. I was doing a good thing. My soon-to-be-typed email was passive-aggressive wizardry, and it was for their best.
Before opening my laptop, I took a sip of my should-have-been-free coffee and looked across the horizon. My line of vision drifted toward the sky when suddenly my heart stopped.
Though we had been in town 2 full days with not a drop of precipitation the entire trip, there in the clouds was the undeniable: a rainbow.
Arced vertically and stretching through the clouds, the prism of color took my breath away. I knew fire rainbows existed having seen them once or twice before, but it was the last thing I expected to discover on this very rotten and very early morning.
It was stunning.
And then it struck me. That rainbow - that prism in the sky - it was a message, and it was whispering to me. There in the clouds, I knew God was gently speaking to my heart: “I see you.”
Despite my first-world fury and frustration and my basket-case moment, God showed up and embraced me with, “It’s okay. I see you.”
When everyone else missed the mark, God did not.
He knew. He knew exactly what went down. He knew about the lack of bippidi and boppidi, and he knew that this was my last morning of my last day of my last weekend before life as I know it is over.
He knew. And he saw. And he sees.
He is the God who sees.
Look, I’m not trying to spiritualize something trivial. But the fire inside of me was so deep, and the wonder of that fire rainbow was so gentle and kind that it melted the flames right out of me.
That realization - that message - it shifted something in me. It was like a tenderizer to my heart, and my thoughts began to soften.
I looked at my laptop next to me, and I let out a gentle chuckle. I shook my head, now laughing at myself. My full-fledged Karen email was dissipating into nothing more than a big dumb joke.
Everything inside of me felt lighter, kinder and more generous.
God sees me, and that is enough.
With a half smile fixed to my face, I walked back to the hotel. Matt and I had plans for our last morning, and it was time to get going.
Before we left the hotel, I walked back to the cafe. My 6am coffee-no-coffee-coffee friend was still working.
I walked up to the counter, reached out my hand and set another $5 bill on the counter, this time with more of a slide and less of a slap.
“Thanks for going out of your way for me earlier,” I offered with a smile, “I was having a rough morning, and I really appreciated that cup of coffee. Have a good day.”
I walked away before he could respond, and I meant every word that I offered.
Being known and seen changes everything.
Who in your life needs to feel seen?
In less than two weeks, I have the privilege of showing up each day and connecting with 270 middle schoolers with the hope of sharing that message with them: I see you.
I can’t think of a better reason to voluntarily wake up before 5:40AM.
Each day at school I get to serve 270 precious, struggling, sometimes sideways and always desperate for hope kids (after my coffee, of course), and with a heart tendered by God, I can say with all sincerity: I see you.
It’s not an innovative counseling technique or a data-driven educational approach, but it’s as powerful of a tool as one can have in their toolbox.
And I’m so grateful God placed it in mine.
