Parking Ticket

520 West Ash Street is where my Campus is located. It isn't 30 minutes drive away from the city but it is right in the heart of downtown San Diego. And like in any other metropolitan cities, parking system is very limited and expensive. The less expensive ones are available for shorter time meter, which means that after 1 to 2 hours the parking meter has to be recharged and the car has to be moved somewhere else. If not, the parking officer would be more than happy to tag the car with a yellow envelope enclosing a parking violation notification or the ticket.

It was after class this afternoon when a friend of mine and I saw the yellow-so-hateful envelope clipped beneath the car's wipers. It wasn't expected. He was convinced that he'd had the meter filled up and he even had moved the car to a different place.

Too bad so sad. There isn't many options that we have when a ticket is issued. To go for appeal, we need to have evidences (which in our case, we might not have sufficient ones). Moreover, it would be so frustrating and time-consuming with all of the paper-work. The simple way out would be to pay the charges.

Anyway, it was my first time holding the "blessed" ticket with my own hands. My mistake or not, I was angry -- we did anything that we could do to obey the law, but in return we were issued a ticket -- and what I want to do the most was to tear up the ticket. I assumed that by doing so we could erase all the issues surrounding the ticket from our memory and from the now-heavy-and-dark-air and come clean.

As we drove home, the whole ticket problem clicked me on the concept of forgiveness. I was guilty -- maybe not just with my parking charges but with my other transgressions and short-comings. But Somebody had paid my charges in full and set me free. He took the ticket from my hand and tore it; and now the ticket has no power on me.

And just by imagining that I didn't have to pay off the ticket anymore, I was so relieved.

Well, I and my friend still need to clear the parking charge, but I believe, I won't have to worry about my other "charges" for Christ had dealt with them around 2000 years ago. He took all of my guilt and shame to the cross and nailed them there so that they would bother me no more. So when the time comes for me to face the Judge, I will be confident that I am not guilty for any charges for I have been redeemed.

What a marvelous sacrifice.