When God visits hell...

I can tell that I have finally started to feel a little better. I can tell because I find I am being stubborn about most everything. I am insisting that I feel fine as I literately gag down a sandwich or my back might be killing me but I insist on pulling all the pesky weeks plaguing my garden.

It was Monday and after 3 weeks Mike had just gotten his car back from the auto repair shop. I was so happy to have the freedom to go where I pleased I decided to do a little grocery shopping. I was tired and not feeling too hot but determined to get out of the house and explore my freedoms. Now grocery shopping isn't really my favorite passtime. It used to be when I was a kid and knew I could whine my way into a candy bar or a stop at McDonald's on the way home but now it is plain and simple work. Being on a budget I have found that I get much more bang for my buck at Wal-mart. Not always the most pleasant time shopping and I almost never find everything on my list there but cheaper none the less.

I pulled into the parking lot and I decided to park my Jeep near the back of the parking lot with it's "For Sale" signs plastered neatly in place so everyone driving by could see. I made my way into the store and began up and down the isles to collect all the things on my list. Not one isle in I realized it wasn't going to be easy. I was hungry, I had to go to bathroom, I was tired and realizing that half of humanity needed a class in common courtesy. A women pulls up in the middle of the isle with no awareness of the lines of people waiting for her to move. Then someone strolled up next to her and park on one side of the women while someone else decided that was a great idea parking on her other side making a barricade so that no one could pass so I decide to turn around completely and come back to this isle I just start going in the other direction when a women in a motorized cart (don't get me started on these motorized carts most of the people in them don't know that they are driving in a store and not out on a street race somewhere I nearly took a ride in one womens lap as she plowed by completely unaware of my existence) pulls up and parks directly in front of me. I am stuck completely stuck. Soon my cell phone is ringing. It's Mike. "Honey I am stuck in a Wal-mart isle I am tired, hungry, my stomach is turning, I have to go to the bathroom and I want to cry." He says he will be right there but what could he do it would just be one more body in this sea of people. I declined his help and his suggestion to just come home and finish my shopping another time. I must finish. He said he would meet me at home with the chips and salsa from the Mexican restaurant I have been craving, not to mention about the only thing I had been eating for days which made me wonder why I was grocery shopping at all when I could just eat chips and salsa.

I finally get to the end of the isle unsure if I can continue. I come around the corner to see a handsome young man staring back at me with sincere sympathy in his eyes. I looked at him and said in a shaky voice "I don't think I can do this anymore, there are too many people." He smiled sweetly and said "I know, I agree." I felt like I had found an angel with an understanding soul that God had sent so I could continue on. I finally made it through and I knew I didn't have everything on my list but after asking 3 different associates where the bread crumbs were and getting 3 different answers all of which were wrong I had had enough.

I finally pushed my cart into the bright sunlight and had just one more hurdle to jump. Finding my car. Realizing that I had so smartly parked it at the far back of the parking lot I wanted to cry. I was about to cry when I began heading down the parking lot and looked up to see painted on a bright shining window "You did a great job!" I felt like God was smiling at me saying your are almost home. My angel in the store with a sweet understanding smile, my reasuring "sign" from God (that I am sure was for someone's graduation) and my angel waiting at home with chips and salsa. I got into my car drove home and thanked God that he cares about the little things.

And you know what no one called on my Jeep. I parked at the far back of the parking lot for nothing.