It’s that day again.
The day I have to muster up all I got to get
myself to Costco and purchase enough food to feed a small army, or in my case a
small family of four for 2 weeks.
Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Costco, but
every once in a while this day coincides with me in a rather foul mood and
well, let’s face it--it’s the perfect storm. I pity the person who meets me at Costco on this day.
I manage to drag
myself in there, grab my jumbo size cart and prepare for my upper body workout of a lifetime, which gets more intense the more I pile into that cart.
As I near the end of my
very precise and rigid turn by turn course through the store, I’m wielding my
cart with everything I’ve got. Of course I start running out of space to put stuff—IN MY JUMBO
SIZE CART—when I start to see the staring.
You know the looks. From the old
people that are just there to buy vitamins and books. They don’t have a cart.
Queue the sneers, smiles and then someone actually has the guts to comment,
“You sure you can handle that thing?” followed by a chuckle, chuckle.
I keep pushing, encouraged that I can see
the check out now and just get out of here. I stand in the jumbo line with my jumbo cart with a jumbo irritated look on my face, when the
check out guy-- of all people-- has to say “wow, how many kids do you HAVE?”
Now, most the time I go to Costco if get these
types of comments, I can deal.
Today it’s all I can take
to not scream at the top of my lungs “We are at Costco, right?! I mean, aren’t
we all here for the same reasons? We are all here to buy in BULK? Don’t
judge me!”
But I don’t scream it. I mutter “just 2 kids” and then throw out
some reasons to justify why I’m in their store buying so much food, but
really I just stand there feeling like I’m a freak and there is something wrong
with me.
I wheel out to unload my giant food stash into my tiny
Prius. As I am attempting this very tedious and calculated task, I have an
older couple wheel up next to me and say “we are just curious how you are going
to get all this into that little car” -no joke, people, I couldn’t make this
up. They then proceed to WATCH ME load it all into my car.
It was all I could
take to not peel out of the parking lot yelling “Up yours, Costco!”
I can’t help but reflect on
this and see the spiritual parallels. How quick we are to make assumptions,
quick judgements and thoughtless remarks about the lives of others. About their feeble attempts. Their straining efforts. Perhaps
they have just mustered up everything they’ve got to just drag themselves
through the doors only to be greeted with strange or disapproving
looks.
Aren’t we all in the same
circumstance in life? Oh, sure the story looks differently in every unique
life, but boil it all down and it’s the same. We all want to love and be loved.
Acceptance. Belonging. Forgiveness. We
want to know God and what He wants us to do with our lives. We want to know if any of this
matters. Do my heart felt tries even matter?
We are trying, sometimes
straining with all we’ve got to just keep going, and the play-by-play
commentary by the people standing on the sidelines of our lives is just not
helpful. Often times, it is hurtful.
Some of my deepest wounds have been
inflicted by people who falsely judged me or made wrong assumptions about my
heart and motives. People who disapprovingly watched me push my cart.
What do you do
with that?
While the answer to this question feels weighty and complicated and
hard, I hear Him whisper the simple answer to my heart, “Be kind to one
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave
you.”(Ephesians 4:32)
The truth of the matter is I’m not accountable for how
others treat me. I am accountable for how I treat them. And God’s measuring rod
is kindness. Love. Mercy. Forgiveness.
I’m learning that it is much easier to
forgive others when you realize you also have been the person gawking, sneering
and making rude comments at the person who is just trying to get through the day with their jumbo size burden. That I've been the one inflicting wounds with careless words or a raised eyebrow.
We have a simple, yet profound power. The power to encourage or discourage. To give or to take. To lighten anothers burden or to make it more difficult for them to bear.
The power of just a friendly smile, a kind word. An acknowledgement of
my feeble attempts to try to be a good mom. How differently that shopping trip
would have turned out if the checker guy would have said “Wow, look at all this
great food! Your family is going to enjoy some good meals!”
It makes me realize
the power of one interaction to encourage and strengthen another, to help bear
their burden in some small kindness, and how love covers a multitude of wrongs.
It makes me realize how badly I want to help push other people’s carts. To help
them load it all up in their tiny cars, all the while yelling “You can DO
this!!! We are in this TOGETHER!”
Yep. And then peel out in my little Prius
yelling “Thanks for the lessons, Costco!”
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