The View From The Supermarket--And Beyond.

Being in deepest, laziest hibernation (heh), today I'll just share this original post from three years ago, yesterday.

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"...if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."   ... 1 Corinthians 13:2

Well, let's see... In my last comment box, Becky asked what the book, It's Bright In My Valley was about since no one at amazon.com had reviewed it (people seldom review my favorite books because they're too quirky, old and forgotten. The books, not the people. ha!)

Anyway, this is how I described that book:


"It's rather like Gulley's, Front Porch Tales, except that it was written around 1961.

Philip Jerome Cleveland wrote essays about his days as a young pastor and the memorable characters he met in the New England towns where he pastored in the 1930's and 40's. He led some of them to Jesus, not all, but each person was interesting, quirky, and what others would label as People Least Likely To Step Inside a Church.

He learned to treat all types of people with respect, patience, and to find common outside-interest denominators which helped him form friendships with them, first.

True stories, all, I never tire of reading them!"


I'm glad Becky asked about It's Bright In My Valley because it always reminds me how we can tell we're maturing in God: our own community starts looking different to us.

Huh?

Well, consider the supermarket. We're still immature in God, in love, when we spy the mom with a screaming baby in her cart and two little boys racing down the aisles and we think, "Gah! Why are there so many lousy moms who refuse to discipline their spoiled brats  children every time I go out to shop?"

Or everyone we pass in the aisles is talking into a cell phone, perhaps blocking our way, oblivious to us (me, me, me) and we glare and think, "Cell phones everywhere! Can't anyone stand to be alone for even ten minutes anymore?"

Or every check-stand has a long line and the one we choose (of course) takes the l-o-n-g-e-s-t to get through because the clerk is painfully slow and everybody and his Aunt Jane uses a fistful of coupons and we feel like groaning because they're making us (me, me, me) late for our own Very Important Next Thing.

Want your town to instantly change? Ask God to change you, to grow you up in love. Trust me, I know about this one because when we change, the mom in the supermarket will, instead, appear like a tired woman who truly needs a bit of our help or an encouraging remark.

And all those cell phone folks suddenly look like sad people afraid to be alone for even a moment or perhaps young husbands who just want to bring home the correct items for their wives at home all day with toddlers.

And those slowpokes in check-stand lines become our fellow brothers and sisters for whom Jesus died (and for whom we can pray) and the coupon users become people struggling financially, just trying to save some money for their families and the slow clerk becomes someone who's grateful for her new job and doing the best she can lest she lose it.

God sent Jesus to this planet because of love, not condemnation, and when we get on that same page we, also, get sent out into our world because of love minus the condemnation. And the whole world changes with our going.

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“Why is patience so important?"
"Because it makes us pay attention.” 
― Paulo Coelho


"Let all that you do be done in love."  ... 1 Corinthians 16:14


"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."  ... John 3:16,17


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I'm currently watching Restaurant Impossible by way of Netflix and what a delight! How clearly one can see the difference between pride (disaster and ruin) and humility (success and happiness). Great show.


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Free Kindle books:


Once Upon a Summer

Garden Box Set

Bigger Than Impossible