My Personal Miracle, Part 2

If you've not read My Personal Miracle, Part 1, then Part 2 isn't going to make a lot of sense. I'll give you a very quick synopsis, but I really wish you'd go to the last posted entry and read it first.

~My first husband vehemently hated creamed corn. (I'll not go into how one manages to hate an innocent can of vegetables.) My six-year-old  son loved it. To keep the peace, I didn't buy it. My mother was incensed that my son had to do without. She sneaked it into my shopping cart and fed it to him when she baby-sat.~

One Saturday my mother's doctor called me and after establishing he had the right person on the phone, he said "I'm sorry to tell you this, but your mother's dead." Ten words, blurted out with all the compassion of an answering machine.

Had the doctor been a little kinder, I'm not sure it would have helped in the long run. Mother and I were close, and I never felt like I'd done enough for her. She was young . . . 69 . . . and I always thought I'd have time to do some great things for her.

It never happened.

She was the first loved one I'd ever lost. And I didn't handle it well. I was a new Christian, and I'd tried to witness to her in a very clumsy manner. I didn't handle that well either.

About two weeks after her death I was shopping at eleven p.m. at an all-night grocery store in what was not the most savory section of Houston. It was dim and dingy in the store. The shelves were sagging and the floor boards were buckled. Running the cart over them was like navigating a wash board.

I was, and had been for two weeks, a guilt-ridden, bawling, unkempt mess. I should have been there with her. It wouldn't have happened.

I struggled with the shopping cart, tears flowing down my cheeks, taking my mascara with it. And I prayed. I begged Jesus to "give me a sign." I didn't know enough about the Word to know I wasn't supposed to ask for a sign. "Please let me know she's with You." I cried under my breath, over and over. "Please let me know she's with You."

I don't think I really expected Him to give me an answer. Frankly, I don't know what I expected of Him. But what He gave me was beyond anything I could have hoped for in my wildest dreams. New ignorant Christian or seasoned Bible scholar, Jesus meets us where we are.

A couple of customers came and went while I stumbled up and down the aisles. I think I was wishing someone would ask me what was wrong and hug me until my tears subsided. But no one did. The cashier eyed me suspiciously.

Finally, the only customer left in the store, I approached the check out counter. The cashier greeted me in broken english and began ringing up my purchases. Two full large paper sacks later I paid him, pocketed my change, lifted one heavy bag in each arm, and headed for the door.

"Wait."

I swung around. The cashier was motioning for me to come back.

Apprehension gripped me. It was late. There was no one else in the store. "What do you want?"

"I forget something."

Thinking he'd given me the wrong change, I walked back to the register. He reached under the counter and pulled something out, which he immediately dropped into the top of one of the bags I was carrying.

"What is this?" I couldn't see in the bag, and both my arms were full. "I didn't pay for it."

"Just go!" He motioned me out of the store, hurriedly.

A little worried about leaving the store with something I hadn't paid for, I left at his urgent request.

It wasn't until I'd struggled to get the groceries in the back of my station wagon that I was able to examine what he had put in the top of my bag.

A can of creamed corn.