Security of Provisions | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Security of Provisions | Previous Challenge Entry
By LINDA GERMAIN
03/05/15
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I wasn’t paying attention to the weather reports, and now, like a few hundred other people, I’m headed to the big discount store for food and supplies.

It’s colder than what we southerners are used to in the winter. The predictions for this afternoon are ominous, but nothing is falling out of the sky…yet. Maybe it’ll be like other warnings of storms that never happened.

After a few slow cruises up and down the packed rows I’m blessed to get a good parking place.

My list is short, but filled with absolute necessities. As the checker rushes my purchases through lickety-split she tells me she lives out in the country and is going home in a few minutes.

I hurry out through the double doors right into the biggest snowflakes I’ve ever seen. Oh my! It’s beautiful! Like the song says, it sticks to my nose and eyelashes as I transfer the things from buggy to vehicle.

That’s when I espy one small article that never made it to the check-out counter. I mumble, “Good grief.”

Honesty will not let me use bad weather as an excuse to steal, so I trudge back into the store with the delinquent item that tried to escape without payment. It’s my only option. Besides, I remind myself, we reap what we sow.

By the time I retrace my steps to begin the return trip to home, the snow has increased many times over. The temperature has dropped like a rock. I don’t need to use the cart to haul just one small thing, so I grab the purchase and take off to my car.

The engine starts just fine, but the windshield wipers are frozen!

There’s no choice but to creep home, about two miles or so, and pray that I can make it.

I do.

As I begin to unload the groceries, a sick, kick-in-the-gut feeling nearly knocks me down. MY PURSE! I left it in the buggy just inside the store.

I run in the house and call them.

I pray.

They don’t answer.

I pray.

I wait one minute and call again.

They answer.

Panic is trying its best to strangle me. My voice quivers with threatening tears as I tell customer service I left my green leather purse in the baby seat of the cart.

There are several hundred dollars in my wallet I’ve been saving to use for new glasses and contact lenses for my son’s belated birthday gift. She puts me on hold to transfer me to the manager.

While I wait and pray, a peace settles over me with the comfort of a warm blanket. I know that I know that I know.

I ask the Lord to forgive me for the momentary lapse in the faith that daily sustains me. I pray against the obvious evil attack on my safety and well being. Now I’m back on track.

The manager is curt. Poor thing must have her hands full with the influx of bewildered people who suddenly (like me) realize there’s no milk or bread or cat food in the larder.

I know what she will say, and she does.

“We have it.”

Here I go again. This time, I’ll take the other vehicle. Its wipers work, but the heat doesn’t.

I rush to grab the keys. They aren’t to be found! What? I just had them in my hand. There’s no choice but to take the car with the often non-functioning wipers that are now held hostage by snow and ice.

I pray...but I do not panic.

“Thank you, Jesus, for protecting my money and credentials and for making a way for me to get through this storm.”

On impulse, I turn the wipers’ control. They jump to life in tandem like little soldiers lying in wait to thwart the enemy. Wow! I smile and sing praises to my Savior all the way back to the store.

I ask the manager, “Who turned in the purse?”

“A lady just wheeled cart and all to us and then left.”

God bless that dear person.

When I walk in the house, my elderly relative asks if the money is missing.

“I haven’t looked,” I reply.

I’m confident that FAITH can move mountains and protect purses.

“I can tell you this,” I assure her,” it’s all there.”

I’m not wrong.

I hum as I begin to put away food and supplies.

“Uh oh…where are the eggs?”

I laugh. It doesn’t really matter. I’m not going back.
____

*True

1 John 5:4 (NLT)

For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our Faith.

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