Count the Cost

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Although I don’t usually scrutinize my grocery receipts, this weekend after arriving home with my bags I did, because the total seemed so low. That’s when I realized the check-out girl hadn’t charged me for a small rose plant I’d bought as a Mother’s Day gift.

Sweetheart roses

Since I was on a tight schedule and the store was a 30 minute round trip from home, I didn’t have time to go back. And if I had, two things might have happened, making me wish I hadn’t. (1) The cashier might have gotten in trouble, and (2) the store manager might have said, “Don’t worry about it.”

So I did nothing.

The next day I explained it all to Mary, complaining about the inconvenience of having to go back to the store since I knew the right thing to do was pay what I owed. “You know,” she said, “it’s funny how that seems inconvenient now, but when I had kids living at home, I used to literally pray for opportunities just like that one. It was the perfect chance to teach something important without saying a word.”

She was right. Children watch us closely, “catching” the values we live out in front of them. Maybe, I thought, if I corrected the payment problem of the rose plant, someone I didn’t even know might “be watching.”

The day after my rose non-purchase, I had another list of errands, this one in the opposite direction. Last on my list was to head back to the rose store to settle up. When I finally got there, I walked over to the display of rose plants from which I’d “bought” the first one the day before. Pondering the best way to make things right, I decided to buy a second plant and let the checker scan it twice rather than go through the manager, causing trouble for the young girl who’d forgotten to charge me.

That girl wasn’t on duty, so I chose a young boy cashier and briefly explained that I wanted to pay for the plant I’d gotten for free the day before. “So,” I said, “why don’t you just scan this one twice,” I said, handing him the plant.

“Really?” he said, looking me in the eye. He picked up the plant, waved it over the scanner, then held it in the air, ready to do it again. Looking back at me he said, “You sure?”

“Yes,” I said,  “because if I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t sleep tonight, you know?”

“I suppose,” he said, swiping it a second time.

“And if I let myself get away with it this time, it would be easy to do it again some other time.”

“Maybe,” he said, slowly bagging the plant, not entirely convinced.

But as I turned to go, he said, “Hey… I appreciate what you just did.”

When I got in the car, I looked at the receipt. Amazingly, this one seemed low, too. Actually it was. Between yesterday and today, the roses had been marked down to half price, so I ended up with two…. for the price of one.

Sweetheart roses

Sweetheart roses“Better to be poor and honest than to be dishonest and a fool.” (Proverbs 19:1)

Studying for Finals

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Fun with MomSunday is Mother’s Day, and I’ve been reflecting on my own mom. Having grown up surrounded by her love, her prayers, and her non-stop good times, the only thing I can do is translate my thoughts to prayers of gratitude.

Mom lived to be 92, and of course she became more sedentary as the years piled up. She never stopped playing games with her grand-kids, though, and loved every encounter with them. But there was something she loved even more than that: reading her Bible. “I’m studying for my finals, you know,” she’d say, a statement that reflected her strong belief she would be in the presence of Jesus “pretty soon.” She wanted to be as well prepared to meet him as she could, and burying herself in his Word seemed like the right approach.

Beach party

In 2004 (her last summer), she stayed a while with us at our cottage in Michigan. As a crowd of us would pack up for the beach, she’d settle into a chair by the window, her Bible in her lap and say, “Have fun!” In her opinion, though, she was having the greater fun, with Scripture.

That summer I watched her repeatedly open to the first page of the Bible, Genesis 1, where day after day she’d be on the same page. One day I asked about that. “Why don’t you turn the page?”

Her answer was interesting. “Have you ever thought there might have been eons of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2?” She couldn’t turn the page, because the first one offered so much to think about.

As she sat hour after hour studying Genesis 1, she bounced back and forth from reading to meditating to asking God questions, trying to absorb everything she could.

It was during that summer she said, “The answer to every problem is in the Bible, and that includes the cure for cancer.” Her favorite example of Scripture’s practical information was in Exodus 2:3’s description of the basket that baby Moses’ mother made for him. The Bible says she waterproofed it with “tar and pitch.” Mom said, “That was to let people know where to drill for oil.”

Mom absolutely loved her Bible and fully trusted the Spirit of God to have led the men who wrote it. She often asked us scriptural questions and readily admitted she didn’t have all the answers.

Ya don't say!

I’m quite sure Mom never had to take any heavenly final exam, but if she had, she would have done A-OK. As I think back on her unflagging diligence in studying Genesis 1 that summer, it’s satisfying to know that now, in the Lord’s presence, she has had her questions answered.

And she probably even knows which Bible verses hold the cure for cancer.

Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures?” (Mark 12:24)

But first….

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Sitting soloYesterday was a day of firsts for 6 month old Emerald: first baby food, first tooth, first trip to the beach, first sitting-up-solo.

That first year for all of us was a doozy! Most of us tripled our birth weight, mastered our first words, learned to sit, crawl, stand, and walk, figured out who was family and who wasn’t, and could mimic animal sounds. Scientists say if we continued at that phenomenal rate of development, we’d eventually be as tall as a skyscraper and would possess all the knowledge of the world.

During that first year babies are coping with “firsts” virtually every day, and truth be told, firsts don’t end after that. They may not come in such rapid-fire succession, but they do keep coming. Some people love that aspect of life, embracing unpredictability and thriving on change. Others would rather learn a niche and stay there. But babies? They don’t have a choice.

We adults might think we do have a choice about how and when we encounter our firsts, and in certain respects that’s true. We can control whether or not we try sky diving or deep sea diving, but oftentimes we don’t have a choice about our firsts. Accidents fit into that category, as well as disease and death.

Whatever our firsts are and whenever they come, they’re always accompanied by a need to adjust. That might involve making concessions and sometimes having to lower our standards in order to cope. But when we have to, we do. If we refuse, we can find ourselves sliding into dysfunction.

Sometimes I think of the multitude of firsts Jesus faced when he chose to become human. I wish I could have listened in on the discussion between the three members of the Trinity as they pondered the many dramatic firsts the Son would have to experience. That he willingly subjected himself to them anyway, knowing how difficult they would be, is proof of his love for us. It was the only way to make sure we could be citizens of heaven, and for a reason unknown to us, he wanted that with a passion.

Jesus experienced his firsts moving from heaven to earth, a definite step down. The rest of us will move in the other direction, from earth to heaven, a change that will bring one magnificent first after another. Most likely there won’t be an end to those, and that’s a glorious prospect.

Eating

Yesterday little Emerald had a day marked by happy firsts, and the rest of us could probably name a few we had, too. But positive or negative, welcome or unwelcome, we can simply choose to view all of our firsts as practice for an eternal life that will be chock full of them. But how thrilling to know that those firsts will all be good ones!

“How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you.” (Psalm 31:19)