Small Blessings

I had gotten out of bed late. I knew the stores would be crowded with holiday shoppers at that time of day, but I drove to Walmart anyway. I wanted to pick up a prescription my doctor had sent them the previous day. When I reached the pharmacy, I was told the medicine was out of stock and to come back in two days.

As I was already in the store, I decided to pick up some grocery items. The grocery aisles were busy, but not nearly as busy as the rest of the store. I had noticed on entering the store that the checkout lanes were chock full of shoppers with heavily loaded carts. As I began shopping I resigned myself to standing in a long queue at the checkout. I loaded my cart with more food than I usually purchase (if I had to wait in a queue, I would make it worth my time) and headed to the checkout lanes. I pushed my cart past lane after lane looking for a short queue, but every lane had several shoppers with loaded carts. I turned and pushed my cart back the other way, and lo-and-behold, there was an open checkout lane. Where did that come from?! I would have sworn it wasn’t there thirty seconds earlier.

I entered the checkout lane and as I began placing my grocery items on the conveyor belt, I said to the checkout girl, “God is smiling on me today. All the other lanes are crowded and your lane is open.” The girl answered with some banality. I put item after item onto the conveyor belt, until at last I got to the loaf of bread, which had magically gotten beneath the other items, and was therefore squished.

I handed it to the checkout girl, and she held it up and said, “Oh, your bread is smooshed.”

“I’ll have to replace that loaf,” I told her, and she set the bread aside.

I emptied my cart and she rang up all the items, and when she got to the last item I told her, “Go ahead and ring up the bread. I smooshed it so I’ll buy it. The store shouldn’t have to pay for my mistake.”

“You sure?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, “I’ll take it.”

She reached for the loaf of bread, and then she exclaimed, “Look at the bread — it’s popped back up! It’s not smooshed any longer. It popped back up. That is crazy!” I looked at the loaf and indeed, it was no longer squished.

The girl put the bread in a plastic bag, and as she handed me the bag she reiterated, “That is crazy!”

“I told you,” I replied, “God is smiling on me today.”

Sometimes God smiles on us in a big way and we call it a miracle. Sometimes God smiles on us in a small way and we call it a blessing, or a fluke, or a lucky break. When God smiles on you, always smile back. And say “thanks.”