Wednesday, November 23, 2016

November 23 – “See you next year”

Well, I was officially sore when I woke up yesterday.  A full day of turkey frying did my muscles in.  We still made our way to water exercise class, though.  I was glad we went … when it was over.  The pool is heated, so it’s a little easier to ease into the movements than if we were, say, walking or running.  But then I’m not allowed to run anymore, so I was in the right place, I guess.

My next stop was Firestone.  We have had a very slow leak in one of the tires for several weeks now.  It has been long enough that Nathan even took to sending us shame text messages.  Ever see one of them?  The one we got was a lady wagging her finger back and forth and back and forth, on an eternal loop, reminiscent of my Mom or my Grandmother.  It’s a good thing there was no sound.  I could already hear the voice of my Dad tsk-ing me.  I had originally planned to stay and wait, but since I had to double-park in the parking lot, that didn’t look like it would be happening.  The guy took a look at the book I had with me and said, “I hope you have enough reading material for about three hours.”  Needless to say, I called Chris for a ride.  They did get the leak fixed, though.  It was “a tiny leak caused by a tiny nail right in the center of the tire.”  Thanks to the road hazard warranty it didn’t cast us anything.  Minor inconvenience, major win.

We also broke a personal record for the Thanksgiving holidays.  We emptied the grease from the turkey fry and got it out for the trash day BEFORE Thanksgiving.  Never been done before that quickly.  Of course we forgot to include the innards we had in the freezer to throw away.  So that record will stand for another year.

Our final outing of the day?  Three guesses.  Wal Mart, of course.  We needed a few staples like fruit and dog food.  I was also looking for another Helmhutt Star Christmas decoration for the church.  It has a bunch of points to it, all equal angles and lines geometrically.  The concept was developed years ago in Germany by a geometry teacher challenging his class to construct something different.  The star is what they came up with.  We have had one at the church for years, but it has disappeared for some reason.  I know it’s probably somewhere easy, but we need it on Sunday morning to kick off the Advent season with the star of hope.  As it turned out we didn’t find one, but we settled on a five-pointed gold one .  The symbolism is the same.

While there we saw the checker that I gave the fried turkey to.  I eased up to her and asked if she had eaten it yet.  And I was rewarded by being engulfed in hugs and smiles and thank-you’s.  I introduced her to Chris, and the hugs and thank-you’s transferred over to her.  She told us all about how she heated it up and ate it in her bedroom so she wouldn’t have to share (“since there wasn’t all that much anyways”).  She even avoided the puppy dog eyes of her pet.  And when her husband got home and asked about the great smell in the house, she scolded him a little bit, and reminded him, “that you wanted roast and ham and you weren’t gonna get me my fried turkey so I just got MY fried turkey somewhere else.”  I told her the only catch was that she had to pray for us now.  She gave some mighty strong assurances on that.  I think she might have enjoyed it.  She made a point to tell us that she would be working at Christmas time, too.  Chris told her we only fry turkeys around Thanksgiving, so with a huge grin she replied, “See you next year.” 

Ephesians 3:17-19 says, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”


Father, thank you for the giddy joy on the face of that WalMart checker.  Give her and her family a happy season, and draw them closer to you.  Amen.

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