Random Act of Un-kindness

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Yesterday’s to-do list included the pleasure of picking up my firstborn at O’Hare Airport after not having seen him for ten months. Allowing the usual two hours to make that trip from Michigan, I added 45 minutes for a stop at Walmart to get groceries for Christmas Day.

The store was crowded, and I was in a big hurry.

After my list sent me to three of the four farthest corners of that expansive store, I was finally ready to check out – ten minutes “overtime” on my schedule. But when I found a line with only one customer, I was sure God was helping me.

checking outI plunked my items on the belt double-time, piling them two and three deep to get them all on at once. The check-out girl said to the woman in front of me, “That’ll be $19. 70.”

The customer stood with her back to me, her purse in the cart’s baby seat, arms leaning on the push-bar. It was the posture of exhaustion. Her elbows never left the cart as she rummaged through her purse looking for payment. Tapping my toe and checking my phone, I mentally berated her for not having it all together.

As she continued rifling through her purse, she didn’t say a word. She didn’t even turn in my direction to say, “Sorry.” An eternity of four minutes passed, and I could feel the sweat breaking out beneath my down coat. Apparently she felt it too, because she stopped rummaging long enough to take her coat off, folding it into the cart next to her Walmart bags.

As I considered unloading the belt and rolling my cart to a different register, I heard from God (in my spirit). “Margaret, pay her bill and get ready to share your faith.”

“Good idea,” I thought. “Then I can finally get checked out!”

Obediently I put my hand on my purse but found it hard to turn off the frustration. But suddenly the woman produced a Walmart gift card and handed it to the checker, which turned out to be not enough to cover the bill. Lacking four dollars and change, she resumed digging while I pulled out my wallet. “But Lord,” I thought, “it might embarrass her to just hand her money. After all, she’s paid part of the bill now.”

moneyI glanced at my phone. Five more painful minutes had passed when finally she produced a couple of crumpled bills and a handful of change. Her receipt rolled out of the cash register, the woman rolled her cart away, and my opportunity rolled up and died.

 

But God had something more to say.        [Next blog post]

We must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

God’s Different Agenda

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Charlie Brown ChristmasThe Christmas season is full of reasons to celebrate, and celebrate we do – in classrooms, offices, churches, stores, homes, and in our yards.

One of my favorite parts of the season is the music. Though our children grew up with a measure of choice over what they wanted to hear, once we flipped the calendar to December, it was mom’s Christmas carols, all the way.

I love the old standards and don’t have any need to get familiar with new ones, but this year, God himself added a tune of his own: Rock-a-bye Baby.

Daughter Linnea, 9 months pregnant, felt a few twinges yesterday afternoon but didn’t think much of it. Her fifth baby wasn’t due for a few more days, and the older four had all come well after their due dates.

Baby Nelson AaronBut God had a different agenda, and by dinnertime they were cuddling their new baby boy. Labor and delivery were speedy and textbook-perfect with three midwives, one daddy, and one auntie (also a midwife) present for the home birth. Linnea and Adam decided to name their little guy in a special way, after both of their oldest siblings: Nelson Aaron.

As his grandma, my plan was to be in Florida for the baby’s birth – like I was for the last two – but here again, God had a different agenda. Many months ago when Linnea and I chose the day after Christmas for my plane ticket, we gambled that this baby would be late like the others. But the Lord smiled and said, “Well, we’ll see about that.”

He had a different agenda for Linnea, for Adam, for baby Nelson, and for me.

But isn’t that often his way? What we think will happen doesn’t, and what does happen often surprises us. That’s because we so easily fool ourselves into believing we’re in charge of our own lives, when it’s really God who has it all in hand. The up side of this is, if we’re willing to accept that our good, loving God is completely in charge, any future unknowns can’t possibly worry us.

Baby Nelson meets his folksAnd so, as my 11th grandchild dozes in his mother’s arms, I’m delighted to add yet one more Christmas-time carol to my playlist:

Lullaby and Goodnight.

The Most High… does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35)

 

A Desire Accomplished

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CollaboratorsIn 2005, Mary and I began talking about the possibility of writing a book together – someday.  It would be about raising our 14 children together, with the hope of encouraging today’s young moms. We would share what worked and what didn’t, not as experts but as ordinary women who learned by trial and error.

The next year, 2006, we began meeting to strategize, and got together 8 times to plan the book. Mary, a whiz at bringing order from chaos, would establish the “bones” of it, after which I would put “flesh” on those bones through writing. We would use examples from our own experience, including failures, since we learned the most from them.

Table of ContentsWe wrote a statement of purpose and chose a tentative title and subtitle: Old Mommies to New Mommies, What we wish we’d known at the beginning.

We labeled 10 giant yellow envelopes with 10 chapter titles and began filling them with “snippets” of mothering information that would eventually become polished prose. We began writing what would evolve into 57 sidebars and gathered a team of friends who were willing to pray for us.

But then, as I wrote in a blog posted on May 3 of this year, life got in the way:

My family moved from our home of 29 years to a much smaller place and had to focus on eliminating and concentrating. Shortly thereafter, Nate got sick, and in a whirlwind of upheaval and grief, he passed away.

While we were still reeling, Mary and Bervin’s home of 40 years sold, and they too downsized big-time. Then shortly after that, Mary learned of her cancer and began treatment with major surgery and 6 months of chemo. During these same years the two of us greeted 19 new grandchildren and 6 new in-law children.

And our book was set aside.

But since we’d asked God to orchestrate the timing, we just figured he wasn’t ready yet—until that day 8 months ago when he gave us his green light. (A Blog Hiatus) And so we dug out our old notes and went to work.

Chapter 1Today we happily announce that our book is finished! It has taken 8 months, scores of meetings, and hundreds of hours, but we’ve enjoyed every single minute. And since we’ve asked the Lord to choose a publisher, we’re currently in another wait-zone. But we’ll keep you posted on whatever 2016 brings.

P.S. As a publishing postscript, the book of prayers for widows that I was working on in 2014 was published on December 2 and is now available in bookstores and on web sites. (See left margin.)

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you…. one voice [to] glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:5-6)