Yesterday my 15-year-old son, Matt, and I went grocery shopping for Thanksgiving. Somewhere in between my ranting about Meijer not having any real butter and my raving about them running out of Heinz turkey gravy of all things (and this was way before I lost my mind when I realized there was no fresh sage two days before Thanksgiving!) Matt got a phone call from my daughter, Amanda.
Amanda apparently gave Matt some good news and then they were both baiting me to hurry up and get home so she could tell me face to face.
I, being somewhere in between "in the zone" trying to make butter and turkey gravy appear out of nowhere, and puzzled as to what would cause my kids, who know me well, to mess with me when I'm in said zone, kept guessing at said good news. To no avail. And I can only hope I got the right green beans, not the nasty unsalted ones, for the green bean casserole, because I really don't do zone defense in the zone, but am more of a one on oner.
"Did you get a package from UPS?"
"Nope."
"Did you get an acceptance letter from UC?"
"Not yet."
"Do you have a new boyfriend?"
"No, much better than a boyfriend. But you might say a new family member."
"Did you get a new fish?"
"No. I have to go now. Bye." Click.
This is about the time I figured out they didn't have any sage (strike 3) and toyed with the idea of throwing in the towel, leaving my cart, and just going home.
But it was still a pretty full cart, despite the lack of butter, turkey gravy and sage, so we persevered. EVEN AFTER there were also no Macintosh apples to stuff my turkey with. I really wanted my cashier to ask me if I found everything I was looking forward to, but I forgot and went to the self checkout and there was nobody to complain to but myself, and I was already having a frustrating shopping experience, so I didn't add to my own load.
All the while Matt is keeping his cool as usual, but trying to move me along so we can get home so they can spill the beans.
He is ready to burst the whole car ride home. Calls Amanda one more time to see if, pretty please, can he tell me? No way, she says. Wait until we're all together, face to face, and they can do it together.
Then Matt is texting, and then I ask him something and his voice sounds all sniffly and clueless, I ask him why he is sniffly. He says because he was crying and I have NO IDEA what is going on. First I think he is joking around. Then I realize he is not, and ask if something is wrong? No, he says he is crying because he so happy. The news is so happy.
My eyes immediately begin to drip; I grab his hand, step on the gas, and just sit there in wonder at my son, his tender heart, and the things that move him to happy tears. At this point, I FINALLY clue in that we are dealing with some BIG DEAL and now I am in that zone.
So we arrive home, the whole family gathers around the island in the kitchen, and my kids tell my hub, David, and me, that a friend of theirs, A, who used to be an atheist, and went to the Newsboys concert with them changed her mind that night, and then changed her profile to Christian. And now she wants the whole lot of their group of friends to baptize her at the Vineyard!
The thing about the Newsboys concert, was they weren't even supposed to be here in Cincy. But they had a cancellation and called the Underground to see if they wanted them to do a show on their way through. When we dropped off our kids for the concert, the staff was telling us what a miracle it was that they were there.
They have no idea.
We told our kids that God must have done that just for A. How cool is that?
Anyway, here I was chasing sage all afternoon, and there they were all the time: "and a little child will lead them" (Isaiah 11:3); and "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kinddom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).
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