Not that this is completely atypical for the Robertsons…but we came close to eating little more than peanut butter sandwiches, Frosted Flakes, canned tuna, kidney beans, lasagna noodles, and mandarin oranges in heavy syrup for Christmas dinner (basically the contents of our pantry). And we’re going to have a total of twelve people here in a few hours!
The story goes something like this. Yesterday was so hectic. It probably shouldn’t have been, but it was. While Beth was doing housework and wrapping presents, I was uploading pictures to Walgreens to be developed and baking unleavened bread for our Christmas Eve service at church. Beth was running errands for me and I was running errands for her. In between, we were making our lists and checking them twice. Our plan was simple—we were going to buy food for our Christmas dinner after the Christmas Eve service.
Did I mention that Wal-Mart, Food Lion, and Kroger all close early on Christmas Eve?
We were panicking! I started laughing but Beth didn’t think the situation was funny. She was about to play hostess for eight other people and we hadn’t even started buying groceries for Christmas dinner! (It’s about 7:45 p.m. on Christmas Eve at this point, by the way.) Walgreens is always a good place to pick up whatever you need…unless what you need includes ground beef and a variety of cheeses for Beth’s famous lasagna (we go non-traditional for Christmas dinner).
About that time my phone rang. It was my older brother, James. Man, I hated to tell him our dilemma but I had to. “Brother,” I said, “you’ll never believe what we’ve done…”
After he stopped laughing…he told me that my niece had done the same thing, but she had found Martin’s Food Store on Wilma Rudolph Boulevard open until 9:00. I’ve never been so glad to see a store open in my life. I actually said, “It’s a Christmas miracle!” Okay, so I overreacted a little…but you’ve got to put yourself in our shoes.
$105 later, we were on our way home. Crisis solved. Whew!
Our story makes me think about people who are so busy with life that they don’t take time to think about the One born on that first Christmas night. Maybe they’ve planned to deal with God later on in life…maybe they haven’t. But what happens if and when they look up and realize that it’s too late…that their plans were terribly flawed?
We would have survived the embarrassment of our Christmas dinner quandary we almost created; but missing Jesus involves far more than embarrassment. Make room for Jesus today…
Merry CHRISTmas!
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