We'd celebrated Christmas a day early since some of the family would be headed out of town on Christmas day. I had made a big dinner, including a turkey, stuffing, three signature Christmas casseroles, Waldorf salad and two pumpkin pies. Not to mention a fancy cake I'd seen on Facebook and all the treats and candy I'd made.
Naturally, I did not want to cook on Christmas day, and we had received several restaurant gift cards, so the obvious thing to do was to eat out. My husband and I set out for a town less than an hour away where a couple of places would honor our gift cards. It felt good to get out of the house after the tumult of Christmas, happy as it was.
We had gotten about halfway to our destination when Howard slowed abruptly and announced, "We are getting pulled over!" What? We weren't speeding or anything. We stopped, and sure enough, a patrol car was pulling up behind us, lights flashing. "Oh, Lord," Howard prayed, "Let us have favor." Just as we looked up, the police car whipped around us and sped off! What a quick answer to prayer! We praised God and went on!
"Nothing seems to be open in this town!" I exclaimed as business after business was closed. "I'm glad the one I looked up on the computer is open," I said. I couldn't believe it when their parking lot was deserted also! I felt like the family in "A Christmas Story" who ended up eating Christmas dinner in a Chinese restaurant! We had almost given up when we spied an I-Hop that was open. We had no gift certificate there, but we had a surprisingly delicious lunch with a gracious, talkative, older teen waitress attending.
My equally talkative husband began by asking if she were a farm girl, which she was. Turned out she has two horses and shows a 2,000-pound steer in livestock competitions. The industrious young lady said she had worked there 5 years, had paid for two cars, and is going to major in veterinary studies in college! When asked, she admitted she hadn't been to church since childhood when an aunt used to take her, giving my preacher husband the opportunity to recommend a church and urge her to take time to include God in her busy life.
It was blowing a gale outside, and as I clutched my coat closer I felt in my pocket for my gloves. I thought I had worn them in, but perhaps I had left them in the car. I was about to go in and see if I had left them on the table, when suddenly I saw a black something under the rear of the car. My good leather gloves! At least one of them! I must have dropped them! How did the wind not blow this one away? Thankfully, I found the other glove on the seat of the car!
This had been a day of God's favor! First, the patrol car incident, then finding something open and having a good meal of two steaks, enabling us to split an order, our conversation with the young girl, then finding my gloves, (which were my favorite Christmas present last year). The coziness of the restaurant and the convivial atmosphere contributed to a feeling of cheer and warmth on this unusual Christmas day!
No comments:
Post a Comment