Mr. Bob

Benaiah and I are shopping buddies on Wednesday.  While Emerson is in preschool we try to hit up three grocery stores before returning to pick Emerson up. Finding the best deal is always a fun thing for me and spending quality time with my son makes it even better.

My son loves to talk and make funny faces at people while we shop.   He is loved by many a fellow grocery shopper.  He has made a number of friends as we are out and about, but our favorite has come to be Mr. Bob.  Mr. Bob goes to Aldi every Wednesday morning at the same time we are there, so we have been able to connect regularly.  We were surprised two weeks ago when we didn't see him.

This past Wednesday as we were finding our deals we heard, "Is that my little guy?"  We looked up to see Mr. Bob.  

I said, "Who is that?" to Benaiah and he whispered, "Mr. Bob!"  You should have seen the look on Mr. Bob's face.  

"You remembered my name!" Mr. Bob said and we started talking about how he missed us last week because he had to see the doctor.  

I said that Benaiah and I would be praying for him.  Again another big smile and we continued to talk for quite some time.  I was so encouraged by the conversation that I didn't mind having to rush through our other stores to make it back to Emerson on time.

I really want my life to look like this on a regular basis.  For my children to grow up being eager to care for others even if it something as simple as remembering someone's name and praying for them.  I can definitely give up finding the best bargains for that.

Watch Out, God Will Untie Your Shoes

Life has been crazy!  Life is always full, but the last couple of weeks have been a blur.  Birthday parties, grading, family visits, finding the perfect new home, grading....  

We are in the thick of a house hunt and in three weeks have had three contracts on houses.  How is that possible you ask?  I am asking the same thing!  The first house we fell in love with was an older home that had been beautifully restored.  However a home inspection revealed 31 pages of problems, several of them very significant.  Our second house was a short sale and after signing paperwork back and forth with the seller we thought we had found our house.  No such luck and another offer (lower than ours) was accepted.  The house hunt world is a crazy, mind boggling world that makes little sense to me.  I just sign whatever David puts in front of me.  

Now we are on our third house, which is another short sale.  You can't beat a short sale if it works out, more house, less money.  The seller has signed all paperwork and we are now waiting to see if the bank accepts.  

I thought I had been handling all of the stress well until I made an eBay purchase the other day.  You may not like me after this, but I will share anyway.  I am one of those people who likes to wait until the very last second to place a bid in an attempt to get the item for a low price.  However, for those who have been waiting days bidding to win the item of their dreams, I am to them, a thief who cheated them out of what should have rightfully been theirs.  Okay, that is somewhat dramatic, and I am still playing by the rules, but I am sure I have made some other "eBayers" (is that a word) less than happy.

Anyway, after I placed my bid and sat looking at the screen that said I had won, I realized that I was shaking.  Seriously, I was shaking.  I had gotten so worked up waiting for those minutes and seconds to slowly tic down that my body was in some kind of shock.  That is a sad story.

I knew that it wasn't just making an eBay purchase that had lead to the shaking, but that I was just plain stressed out.  After that I tried to slow down some, only to find myself back in the crazy blur of busyness this week.  

I love to walk in the mornings.  Not a meandering kind of walk and nowhere near a run, but a good fast paced walk to get my blood really flowing.  It's still kind of cold outside so I have my hat and mittens on along with my small hand weights to help me have arms like my sister-in-law.

Wouldn't you know that my shoe comes untied.  It takes a lot of effort to tie your shoe when you have mittens and hand weights, but I got it done, only to have my other shoe come untied a little while later!  Seriously, am I that bad at tying shoes?  Good thing my kids will always wear velcro.  

And that is when I sensed God saying, "If you don't slow down, I will find ways to make you slow down." I couldn't help but smile thinking about God untying my shoes while I was walking.  At least He didn't tie them together.

All day this has been running through my mind.  When I am stuck behind someone driving slow or a long line at the grocery store or waiting for a child to finish going to the bathroom, God provides opportunities to slow us down.  Not to tick us off, but to help us stop and really see the life going on around us.  And to keep us healthy.  I don't know how many more eBay purchases my body can withstand without having a heart attack if I keep up this pace.  

So, slow down.  

Stop.  

Breath.  

You just might avoid having your shoes untied.