It was the last Saturday before Christmas and I was
mad. It was that kind of frustrating mad
when there is no one to blame but yourself.
Slam the cabinet doors and stomp around the kitchen mad. Grrrrr.
Mad.
You see, waaaay back in July I had signed up/volunteered to
work this Saturday at our church’s pantry for those in need. We had food goods, clothing and other items—all
arranged like a store. I volunteered
there regularly and usually actually enjoyed it. But today?
The last Saturday before Christmas?
(When I signed up in July, my husband actually said, “Are you sure? That
will be the last Saturday before Christmas?”
My response: “Oh, yes. I’ll have everything done & won’t have
anything else to do that day anyways.”
…Yep, I’d said that). Oh, there
were gifts under the tree—so many they were spilling out all over the living
room floor. The food was prepared. But in my mind, I needed one more trip to
the mall. As I informed my husband—by
the time I finished my stint at church, it’d just be me and the last minute husbands
at the stores! Oh joy! Oh joy….not.
As I stomped around the house getting dressed, no one else
said a word. “Merry Christmas,” my
husband snidely called as I slammed the front door on my way to start the
car. I pulled out of the drive way and
then pulled back in. Running back into
the house, Dan said, “What NOW?” “I
forgot that clothespin reindeer necklace Mika made. I promised her I’d wear it today.” Stomp, stomp, stomp back out the front
door. You could hear the collective
sigh of relief from my family as I left the house.
Arriving at the church, I turned the heat all the way up and
thought to myself what a waste of a Saturday morning this was. Seriously—if someone was in need of items
from our pantry, they would have already been here and not waited till this
late date, right? Around 9 a.m. a
couple of Sunday School teachers, on THEIR way to the mall, stopped by to drop
of gift bags for their classes the next morning. Around 10 a.m. the preacher came in to add a
few more words to tomorrow’s sermon.
Then all was quiet. Just me and
the empty church. Not a soul coming to
the pantry. The minutes slowly ticked
by towards noon when I could take my snarly attitude and head to the desolate,
picked over mall for more things my kids wouldn’t appreciate. FINALLY noon arrived. I turned down the heat and went through the
church turning off the lights. Just as
I was getting ready to step out the door, a battered station wagon came to a
gravel spitting stop in the parking lot.
“Are we too late for the pantry?” the lady driver asked as she jumped
out of the car.
Sigh. “No—come on in,”
I said. (“Yeah, sure,” I thought). A poorly dressed woman and two little boys
came in and I showed them into the clothing portion of the “store.” The lady turned to me, “I wasn’t going to
come—but then I kept looking at the boys, and I couldn’t bear Christmas without
a little something for them.” She went
on to explain her husband’s illness and having to take care of him, hard to
find work—not much money for Christmas gifts that year. Both
of the boys’ jeans were too short and their shoes were on their last few steps. We found shirts and jeans for the boys. Just the week before my son had donated a
jacket that was “no longer cool”—and the older boy saw it immediately. His mother tried to tell him to leave it “for
someone who needs it more—you have a jacket.”
(His “jacket” was a zippered unlined sweatshirt). I encouraged her to let him have it, saying
we needed to make room for more things in the store. I asked her if she’d like new shoes, but she
kept refusing, saying that she only came for things for the boys. After almost begging on my part, she finally
said she’d take some men’s tennis shoes “because they’d last longer.” And maybe a few things for their dad? “Just a few” she said. “We need to leave things here for those that
need it more than us” was her reasoning.
All this time, the younger boy kept looking at my clothes
pin reindeer necklace. Finally, tugging
on his mother’s arm, he got her attention and pointed to my necklace. She smiled & unzipped her jacket to
reveal a matching necklace. “Are you in
Mrs. Smith class?” I asked. It turned
out he was in the same class as my daughter.
Suddenly the differences between us disappeared—we were two moms with
children we loved and it was Christmas.
“Do you have enough food for Christmas?” I asked. She answered that they did and they were
lucky because this was a “hamburger” week.
“Hamburger week?” I asked. She
said one week they had a pot of beans with no meat. The next week they made the pot of beans
with a pound of hamburger. “Aren’t we
lucky it turned out Christmas is on a hamburger week!” she said. I told her my job that day was to clear out
the pantry foods—I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them—could they “please
take some?”
As we went into the food portion of the store, I found a ham
in the freezer and started going through the canned goods. Green beans, corn, soups … flour, sugar,
coffee, tea …all went into the sack.
There was a can of peas that I kept pushing to the back and out of the
way. No way would my children eat canned
peas, so surely her kids wouldn’t either.
As I kept putting items in their
sack, it seemed like that can of peas kept coming back to the front of the
shelf. The lady wasn’t paying much
attention to the items I was putting in the sacks—you could tell she was just
excited to have these groceries.
Just as I was putting the last item in the grocery sack, I
heard the lady say, “Oh look boys! Green
peas!” (What? I stood up with a jerk. “Green peas??!!”) She turned to me, “When I was a little girl,
we always had peas on Christmas day.”
She turned to her boys and with tears in her eyes she said, “We’re
having green peas for Christmas this year.”
Green peas for Christmas was the only thing she had asked me for—everything
else she had said, “Are you sure there isn’t someone who needs it more?”
We loaded her car and they drove away. I locked the church door and got in my
car. I couldn’t drive home. God had sent an angel to me on the last
Saturday before Christmas. She gave me
wake up call about the true meaning of Christmas. I wasn’t going to find it at the mall. The miracle was in the Gift.
