Monday, October 08, 2012

Patience in the cut



The other day, I was waiting in the checkout lane for an unreasonably long time.  Why would I call it “unreasonably long”?  Because I was in the EXPRESS lane.  The expectation is that having “10 items or less” means that the line would move faster in comparison to others that had more items, but not when I was in it at this particular time. 

I don’t know what the hold up was, but others in the line were pissed off with waiting and got quite vocal about it.  Some comments were being made intentionally for the cashier to hear and I’m sure that didn’t exactly encourage her to move any faster.  I know what it’s like to be in a rush and expecting to be in and out of the store, but I had nowhere in particular to be this time so I didn’t join the mini-mob in getting bent out of shape. 

There was plenty of time to kill while standing there so I let my eyes wander around to the other checkout lanes. I saw a toddler sitting in the front of a cart about 2 lanes over, and he intrigued me. Beside the fact that cute babies make my ovaries do the cat daddy, his manner was what caught my attention.  He was maybe just under a year old; eyes bright and taking in the world around him while contently sucking on his pacifier (a-la Maggie Simpson).  As young as he was, he had an aura of peace around him… Dude was just chillin’ in the cut.

What was so special about that?  Well, I took it as a lesson.  Yeah, I know that compared to me, babies got life made--eat, sleep, poop, cry, repeat (in no particular order).  But the Word tells me that I should take the same approach because worrying about life won’t do me any good.  Little things like waiting a couple of extra minutes to buy some things are really NOT.THAT.SERIOUS.  The fact that I had money to buy what I needed easily overshadowed the inconvenience of a slow-moving line.

By the time I made it to the register, the cashier’s shift had ended and she had to switch off with the next one—just my luck, right?   The express lane nazi directly behind me saw what was happening and expressed her displeasure with a ‘smart’ remark.  I just smiled and shrugged.  I waited patiently until the new cashier got set up and greeted her with a smile, as well.  She heard some of the comments and was glad to see that not everyone in the line was waiting to crucify her before she even started her shift. Even if mine was the only smile she saw that day, I felt good that I could share a little bit of Christ with her in such a simple way. Yup, as simple as that.

5 comments:

  1. Good Post. The simple things we can do to give someone a cup of joy is endless.

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  2. Wow. This is just a reminder of how important it is to continue to walk with Jesus' name. So many times we lose our cool and forget it's HIS name we carry, not our own. Thanks for the reminder =]

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    1. Thanks! Lord knows I don't always represent Him the best, but that day I felt such a joy from being able to extend His love to another. :-)

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  3. Wow. This is just a reminder of how important it is to continue to walk with Jesus' name. So many times we lose our cool and forget it's HIS name we carry, not our own. Thanks for the reminder =]

    ReplyDelete