Pink Disaster

“Hey, I’ve got good news. We will have our classes repainted! Isn’t that great?” I delivered the news excitedly.

“Really? What a piece of wonderful news! What color will they be?” Ms. Maria, my friend and my colleague, reacted enthusiastically to the news. She literally stopped typing her lesson plan, turned her large black eyes away from the monitor, and cast them at me. Whenever she was excited, she would show the wide cheerful smile that almost covered all of her round face framed by her short black hair.

“Mine will be green, and yours will be pink. That’s what I heard,” I replied.

“Wait… a.. minute…! Did you say pink?” The enthusiasm evaporated. She said the words extremely slowly as if she wanted to make sure that we digested each and every word well.

“Yes, I did,” I replied almost as slowly as she did when raising the question.

“WHAT!!! They can’t make me teach in a pink class. You know how much I loathe the color. Isn’t there anything we can do to stop this?” The only reply I can make was shrugging my shoulders.

“Well, the boss once asked me about what color they should choose for the classes. Yet, since I am not a good artist, I suggested them to ask Pak Ari instead. We all now how brilliant he is in designing rooms. Hence, I suppose that Pak Ari suggested the color,” I tried to explain a minute later.

“Come on! Teaching in a pink class won’t kill you, will it? It is only a matter of color. You are a great teacher, and a great teacher can teach in any room with any color,” I continued.

There was a quite long pause after I uttered my sentences; long enough to observe my dearest friend sitting before me. This lady is only a few months older than me. Oops… did I say “lady”? Well, she definitely detested that word. She was a tomboy girl; the type of girls who never wore skirts, dresses nor make up; let alone high heel shoes. After more than two years working together, I could say that she loved black, her hobby was speeding with her red motorcycle, and she definitely hated pink. The pause gave me some time to learn over those facts and tried to understand her feeling.

We did not talk about that matter for the rest of the day, and even a few days after that. I even thought that she had forgotten it, but I was wrong. Several days after my ‘notification’ about the repainting, she mentioned about it during our lunch.

“After all, I think LORD loves giving surprises in my life. Every time I hate some thing, HE always gives it to me. I used to hate teaching when I was in the university, and HE made me a teacher. I did not want to teach in the Sunday school, and HE let me teach there. Through it all, I learned that HE always makes me love to do HIS will. And now, I hate pink, and HE makes me teach in a pink class. You were right, it may hurt me a bit, but it won’t kill me. Anyway, HE knows what the best is for me.”

I smiled. My dearest friend finally understood HIS will. I watched her face closely, and I thought that I had to learn a lot from her