November 26 – “Black Friday”

Black Friday.  What a strange way to talk about what amounts to a huge sale.  I know it's all about "being in the black" and making all that money.  But I found out there is quite another side to it.     We had a big Thanksgiving meal last night.  All our kids were here, except for Christina and Josiah.  The littlest grandson has been running fever for the last few days.  The doc says it's a virus, so he just has to gut it out.  Tough on Mom.  He won't remember any of it.  His Dad was nice last night, though.  He left a little early and took over the Josiah shift so Christina could come get a plate to eat and see the cousins and inlaws.     After she got here the planning began.  All three daughters-in-law began poring over the newspaper advertisements.  They were making out Christmas shopping lists and developing a plan of action for the shopping extravaganzas.     April was more focused on a task than I have seen her since she was preparing for her nursing school entrance exam a few weeks ago.  She was determined to hit the sales running as soon as she could.  The dilemma was whether to go to sleep at all or just start with the sale that began at ten p.m. and work her way up to the 4 a.m. nightmares (my words, not hers).  I'm still not sure which won out, but they are supposed to be here for the big leftover lunch, so I guess we'll see then.     Josh and Christi took off for WalMart around 11 last night.  They were looking for some specific things for their kids, and they did ask what Chris wanted for Christmas.  I have no idea how that excursion went, either.  I went to sleep.    This morning I left the house at 6 a.m. to pray with Hutch before his bypass surgery.  He'll be busy for quite a while.  On the way there and home I noticed the parking lots of places like WalMart in LaMarque, Best Buy, and Fry Electronics were packed to the gills.  I decided to do a little research.  I enjoy people watching anyway, so I stopped at Galveston's Target.  I figured if it wasn't too bad I could see if they had that Antz movie.  If it was really packed I could just take a walk and look at the people.  Honestly, I was disappointed on both counts.  They didn't have the movie.  And they didn't really have all that many people.  Maybe everyone had already been there.  After all, it was already almost 8 a.m.     So, Black Friday.  Great fun for thousands of shoppers.  Great profit for businesses.  I still can't help but have a different image in my head when I hear that.  I picture the real Black Friday.  Couple of days before Easter.  Not so much fun.  But way greater profit.  Eternal profit.   Romans 15:7 says, "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."   Father, thank you for that real Black Friday.  Amen.