It Happened One Sunday

What's this? I wondered, as I sat down at a table in Sunday School class and the teacher's husband placed a small paper bag in front of me. A donut? I guessed at the content of the white, folded down sack.

"Is it going to jump out at me?" I teased, then opened the bag to see it was full of miniature tomatoes! Of course! Our teacher is a gardener and has shared produce with us before. "Did you raise these cherry tomatoes?" I marveled, to which she said, "Those were all volunteer."

"Do you have a knife?" my husband, who loves summer tomatoes, joked. We had some of them in a salad for lunch, and they were delicious.

In the morning service the pastor reminded us that instead of our Sunday evening prayer time, we would be participating in a prayer walk for the schools late that afternoon. A long oval walkway in the park would be marked at intervals with the name of one of our local schools for prayer emphasis. Due to trouble with my knee, I wouldn't be walking, but Howard did.

Just as he got home, our phone rang. It was our son, whose family had been walking, too, but evidently behind him and they didn't see each other. He invited us out to their farm to visit, since there was still plenty of daylight left. It was beautiful out there, owing to a lot of mowing done the day before, and as we sat in the yard I remarked that we should have a watermelon to eat outside. Howard and I offered to run into town and get one.

We went to the discount store where we can always count on a bargain in produce, but their melons were small and a little expensive today. We were pushing our empty cart back to the cart stall when we noticed an elderly woman standing uncertainly beside a heavily loaded cart. Howard nudged me and said, "That lady needs help."

"Ma'am, do you need some help with that cart?" we asked, and she smiled and protested a little, but she was frail and with a cane, so we helped her out the door. Howard began to unload her groceries and place them in her trunk. Besides several full bags and two gallons of milk, there were flats of canned chicken and dumplings, spam, Vienna sausages, evaporated milk, and other canned ready-to-eat products.

I commented that she must be buying for a school or something. She said no, but she did feed several people--two families, she said. She mentioned several grandchildren and told us she had recently taken in a homeless granddaughter from Tulsa. "It would've really done me in to load all that," she said in thanking us.

Just everyday events reflecting care and love for each other as Christians. The pastor preached this morning that it's not the big events that churches do nor special highlights in our lives, but what we do in between times in our everyday living that counts. I think I know what he meant. And even though we found the melons we wanted at another store, I think God had us go to the first store for a reason. And the watermelon was particularly delicious!