I have hit the wall tonight and am barely keeping my eyes open, but I wanted to blog quickly about the miracle that happened today at work. Last week I had a difficult conversation with one of my staff, in which he announced he was moving his retirement date up 2 months because my incompetence was driving him out. He was right in that I had made a mistake and could have handled a situation with him better than I did, but he was also totally overreacting. I tried talking to him last week and tried taking responsibility for my mistake and making amends, but he would not accept my apology. I wrote him a card reiterating my apology, but he refused to come to work until this morning so he did not get the card very timely. I had been praying all weekend that God would miraculously change his heart and heal the damage between us, and this morning he came to my office and actually apologized for his overreaction, accepted my apology, and took back his "your incompetence is driving me out" comment and put his retirement date back to May 31 as previously planned. This is not someone who is known for their conflict management skills, and he is definitely someone to hold a grudge, so I was pretty impressed with God's ability to soften him up and work healing between us. I am trying not to think unhelpful things like "One miracle down, 246 more to go!" and just be grateful for his blessing on my staff, my development as a manager, and the fact that Jesus heard my prayers and delivered. Praise you god!