Tuesday, September 16, 2008

a lesson in grace

Tonight was our monthly staff wives' dinner.  We ate at Olive Garden & enjoyed our meal & the fellowship of other ministry wives.  On the way home, I stopped at Brookshire's (local grocery store) for a couple of things.  When I got to the check out line, there was 1 lady ahead of me buying a gallon of milk.  The checker was my neighbor, a 17 year old girl who I've watched grow from a new-teenager who was still quite the tomboy when we moved into this house.  Anyway, I figured it would only take a minute & I'd be out the door, headed home.  It was past the kids' bedtime anyway.  Larry had them at home.  I was just hoping to get home & kiss them in their beds before they fell asleep.

So anyway, I walked up to the checkout & there is this one lady in front of me.  Let me paint you a picture.

She's wearing what looks like pajamas.  Her hair is pulled up in a ponytail.  The ponytail itself is blonde, but underneath it's purple.  She's got 3 children with her.  The oldest, a little boy who looked to be about 8 or 9, is pushing buggies back & forth across the front of the store, ramming into checkout lines & "threatening" to get into one of the motorized carts & ride it.  The mom is screaming at him from a distance, creating quite a scene.  She's got a little girl, about 5 or 6, standing quietly next to her, wearing a pair of little girl-sized high heels.  Cute.  She is holding a toddler who is squirming & whiney.  Oh, and did I mention that all three kids are in their pajamas?  Aside from the high heels on the little girl, all of them are wearing slippers.  It's late.  The purple-haired, pajama-wearing, bratty kid toting mom is buying a gallon of milk with her motley crew & then she does it.  Yep...she pulled out her LoneStar card.  (If you don't know what that is, it is Texas's version of welfare/foodstamps.)  I rolled my eyes & waiting for her to get her wild bunch of kids & go home.  It turns out that she was buying the milk on WIC & apparently the one she picked out was not a WIC-approved type of milk, so there was a 15 minutes-long fuss between her, the cashier, a 2nd cashier & the manager.  I sat there getting more irritated & judgemental of this woman in front of me who was causing such a fuss.  While watching the scenario go down, a man & his Cub Scout uniform clad son walked up behind me.

At this point, I've been waiting for this transaction to end for at least 15 minutes.  I'm getting more frustrated by the moment & then the man behind me asks the cashier "Pardon me, how much is the lady's bill?"  When she tells him that it's $3.88, he offers to pay the bill for her.  He never says he's doing it to get her out of the way or because he's in a hurry or whatever.  He simply says he'll take care of it.  The lady politely turned around & thanked the man and left.

By now, I'm cringing & slapping myself in the forehead.  Here I was, whining (although silently) about how long this weirdo Welfare-mom was taking and some complete stranger steps up & does what I should've offered much sooner!  What a great Christian example I was tonight!  Ouch.

I drove home thinking to myself what a great picture of grace & kindness this man was tonight.  I was frustrated, and rightfully so, but he walked up, saw a problem & offered a way to solve the problem that put more weight on him than the person who was causing the problem to begin with.  He took the cost of her purchase & paid a debt he didn't owe to help her.

Hmm......remind you of anyone else?

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