A Day God Did Not Promise

The Cashier at the supermarket cried. This morning I started making Pumpkin Spice Bars. We had no raisins in the house so I drove down to the local market. I was in line behind an elderly couple (checking out) and a single man (indicated by the one large can of beer in his basket). As I came up the cashier said to the elderly lady, “Let me give you my phone number. You are making me cry.” She then wrote down her number on the couple’s receipt.

The cashier went on to tell the single guy that the elderly lady was dying of bone cancer and had asked the cashier to take care of her husband when he came in. The cashier has been checking for twenty years and has lived in this community for thirty-five. Upon hearing this the single guy related that a friend of his just died from breast cancer to which the cashier replied, “They just found bone tumors in my son.”

As we get rooted and live in community we touch others and are touched by them. That is one of the benefits of being established. At my workplace I’ve had people tell me they look forward to seeing me when they are in town every year. This past week I had a customer ask me how long we’ve been in business. In customer service especially though people see you only once a week they are impacted by your life.

My pastor is always giving thanks for, “another day which God did not promise us but that we have never the less.” It is good to be reminded that life is a gift. Solomon once wrote, “It is better to go into the house of mourning than into a house of celebration. For that is the end of every man and it causes the living to take notice.”

I headed out the door feeling grumpy about the extra trip to buy raisins. I returned home celebrating a day off to go to church with my family. I took notice.