I was standing in the entryway of the supermarket looking
for bars on my cell phone so I could read a text my husband sent with recipe
ingredients for my shopping excursion. To the right of me I caught the sight of
a woman struggling to get out of the seat of a motorized shopping cart. She had
two grocery bags and a walker in the basket.
“Do you need help?” I was still holding the phone in my
hands when I approached her. She answered yes, that she needed a regular
shopping cart to take the place of the motorized one. As I transferred her
heavy grocery bags and her walker over to a regular cart while she slowly moved
her body toward the handles, she told me her story of how she started the year
off by busting her kneecap. I know she went into some detail about it and then
proceeded to describe how she gets home with her groceries, but by then I had
glanced down at my cell phone. The screen was an eerie white with funky colored
print – the words LOCKED and REBOOT stuck out at me among other letters and
numbers. What the -- ?
The woman was still talking as I stood staring at my phone
screen. Wait. Had she just said she pushes the cart with her groceries and her walker up a hill? Had she just said
she’s got it all figured out? Had I just mumbled something like – wow, that’s
crazy – or some other completely noncommittal phrase to end the conversation?
By the time it registered to me that all I had to do was
remove the battery and restart the phone, she had trudged away. I don’t even
know if she thanked me for the little help I had been. I hope she didn’t,
because as I stepped back into the store I wasn’t feeling very good about the
whole interaction.
I joke sometimes that there are moments in life when all I
can think is, This is a test, Lord,
right? Those moments are mostly because I’m struggling with something,
feeling frustrated and stuck. Rarely if ever have they been because I stood in
front of an opportunity to help someone else. It has always been about me.
But this was Holy Saturday, the day before Easter when we
celebrate Jesus' resurrection. This was a matter of hours prior to singing in an
Easter Vigil service where we would ring bells and shout Alleluia. This was… a
test. And I failed.
With all good intentions I had made an offer to help a
stranger. She hadn’t asked - she was just struggling to do what she had conditioned
herself to do for the past few months. It seemed at the time like a win-win
situation. I could do a good deed and she would be all set. Except she wasn’t
all set. She still had a huge barrier to overcome, one that I could have helped
her with, but my good deed-ishness had stopped there in the entryway of that
supermarket.
Of course, I didn’t have to offer at all. Our lives are full
of “Didn’t have to” decisions. God gives us choice. I won’t say that was poor
judgment on His part but I have to wonder if He doesn’t do a lot of head
shaking because of it.
Peter, whom Jesus loved, was a big stumbling lug. He tried
so hard and he never got it right. He wanted to be Jesus’ favorite, his
confidante and his rock. Instead, Peter spent much of his time with Jesus second
guessing himself, needing a slight rebuke from the man he swore he would die
for... and instead denied.
Like Peter, I am God’s child, full of flaws and wrong moves.
I stammer through expressing my faith. I second-guess myself and Him. I pray, I
let go, and then I grab hold again of my biggest issues, as if God couldn’t
possibly know how I want it handled.
I always struggle with emotion through the readings of Palm
Sunday, fully enveloping myself in them, actually cringing when, as the crowd
at the cross, our congregation must yell out, “Crucify him!” during the reading
of the Passion. Like Peter, I don’t always know how to carry that same connection
with God into my daily life. I recognize only a small part of my mistakes, but
He continues to love me and to let me make them.
I get Peter, because I don’t always get it. So what better
day to acknowledge that I am God’s instrument… and that every day He fine tunes
me all over again.
Happy Easter.
I am the new one
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