A New Favorite Grocery Shopping Story

[image: mbeans.com]

Last month, my mother, niece, and nephew brought me to the grocery store for the first time in over eight weeks. (I'm still recovering from the moped accident and brain injury, and up until now, have been receiving grocery deliveries from others. So getting to go along was a BIG DEAL.) I have never had so much fun grocery shopping.

So many things about it were delightful; I don't even know where to start...

I'm still smiling about my one-year-old nephew's evident belief that we were doing this all FOR him. He displayed his jubilation and expectation with grunts, yells, arm-waving, and leg-kicking every time we put something in the cart. Quite the show, and he didn't lose a bit of enthusiasm throughout the store.

I haven't yet stopped teasing my mom about caving to my two-year-old niece's constant suggestions throughout the store. "Grammy, don't you think we should get a treat? Grammy, don't you think we should buy a ball to play with? Grammy, don't you think we should buy some macaroni and cheese?" The first time I saw Grammy turn her down was when she brought a clock (I know, a clock? In a grocery store?) she'd found down an aisle somewhere. Had the clock been made of chocolate, I think it would have ended differently...

We made our way so, so slowly through the store, and I loved it. (I was a pretty slow person before this brain injury, and now I just have a great excuse.) I chuckled later to realize that my niece and I had constantly walked right in front of people throughout the whole store, though for different reasons. She was lost in her imaginative chatter (and occasional suggestions to Grammy), while I've grown accustomed to wearing my hat pulled down low in bright environments and sometimes miss things peripherally as a result.

But the best part, the cherry on top, was the woman who came up to me as I was waiting at the checkout. Pointing to my niece's hair, she said, "Wow, her hair is so blond it's almost white. MY daughter's hair was like that when she was a little girl..."

I agreed that her hair is white-blond, to which the woman responded with several more assurances that her daughter's hair had, indeed, been so blond it could be mistaken for white. (Apparently, having a small child with you is an invitation for people to conduct random conversations with you in public places.)

I'd almost stopped listening when she ended with this gem: "And you know what was the strangest thing about it?" She paused dramatically, and then continued in a hushed voice. "When it was wet, it smelled like chicken feathers."

I say, every once in a while, you just need a story that ends up being about chicken feathers.

Detours: Under Construction, Part Two

“You might let me cry/ You might let me sing, 

You might let me feel a fraction of Your suffering/ but You won’t let me down.” 

(Never Let Me Down by Andy Gullahorn) 

Image: www.signsshipped.com

While there are multiple word pictures I’m holding on to in this season of life (perhaps I’ll blog another time about beetles or dahlias), the one that resonates the most is the one of construction and detours, leftover from an unpublished blog post written last summer.

Then, many of my thoughts were in the theoretical range. Now, some of those ideas are defining my life, and I have a few more thoughts to add.

The analogy in that blog post broke down because I knew the outcome of the driveway construction in five days. Five days of upheaval, and then poof! Beauty. But life isn’t like that.

Life construction happens more like the massive highway overpass project that’s been underway near my home for the past two years. You don’t build bridges and re-route roads and revamp intersections (all while keeping pace with traffic) in a quick-and-easy fashion. It takes time.

In fact, the first leg of the project was simply bringing massive piles of dirt to settle where the bridge would eventually be erected. They sat there all winter. Big, ugly piles of dirt.

Once the actual construction began, the hallmark was its detours.  Three major roads meet at that place, and none of them was ever closed down for more than a few hours at a time (usually in the dead of night). Those of us who commuted daily on these roads had no alternatives in this area but to keep driving on them. Or, to be precise, to keep driving on the detours which bore their names.

Some early changes remained constant, while other sections were completely new every few weeks. I learned that zoning out while driving home from work was not an option. If I wasn’t paying attention, it was easy to miss my exit or end up heading the wrong direction.

Nearly four months ago, I was in an accident which left me with a mild-to-moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI).  It could have been so much worse, and I’m incredibly grateful for all that is intact in my body and mind, as well as for the myriad ways I have seen the love and faithfulness of God as a result of the accident.

However, the recovery has been one of detour upon detour.

In the hospital, I was told that I’d likely be back to normal in a month. (I now know that 80-85% of people with this type of head injury recover fully within a month, so to be told such wasn’t out of line.)

Nearly a month later, and nowhere near my former “normal,” I learned that it could be more like three months before I could drive again or return to work. Starting the school year with my students was out of the question. I cried for hours after that appointment.

Just recently (fourteen weeks after the accident) I had a similar appointment with that doctor. This time she delivered the news that I cannot return to work at all this school year. My progress has not been consistent enough to consider adding the load of teaching (or any work right now).

Detours, and more detours. Just when I think I know where things are headed, the road veers a different direction, and I squint into the future, looking for signs of any sort. Any reassurance I’m still on the right road.

There have been days lately when I've been consumed by wondering about this detour. How long will it last? Will it ever end? Will I be able to cope with the transition to the next season? If this detour has been difficult, how will I ever face more challenging things?

Two thoughts are lighting the way before me, giving me enough confidence to keep moving even though this detour is both uncomfortable and unrecognizable.

First, I trust the One who can see the whole project, both the work inside my heart and the work in His world. He has demonstrated His trustworthiness to me time and again, and the past sixteen weeks have been no different, except in one measure: the acuity of my need. Keen awareness of my need for God –not as an insurance policy over my agenda at large, but instead as the air I breathe and the strength I must have to do whatever He’s placed before me- is a gift, however it is packaged.

Second, when I picture the final result of that overpass project by my house, I smile. The finished product is far superior to the previous, dangerous intersection. Whoever planned and executed that project did a good job. How much more can I trust my Heavenly Father to do a good job in me?

 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32)