I SAW GOD AT WALMART

(I wrote this quite a few months ago after I'd been laid off and the only work I could find was as an "Inventory Specialist"...stocker...at Walmart. Fortunately a wonderful career opportunity opened itself to me since this time and I've kissed the shelves of Walmart good-bye.)

I work at Walmart. And I saw God there today.

 I helped an elderly gray-haired man load his shopping cart with a heavy box of laundry detergent. "This is the best detergent there is," he exclaimed, and went on to explain that he washes his wive's soiled nightgowns with this particular brand. "She gets confused, you see," he said. "But I don't mind. I told her I'd take care of her to the end, and that's what I'm gonna do."  Off he shuffled to the next aisle.

 

God is love. I saw God at Walmart today.

 I watched a burly middle-aged man pushing his mother in a wheelchair.  He had full-arm tattoos and a stringy beard and wore a dirty baseball cap. She was having trouble reading the labels of two kinds of juices. "Here, Mom," he said gently. "I'll read that to you, then you can decide." She sighed and handed them over to him. He knelt down beside her and carefully read the labels to her.

 "Look after orphans and widows," the Good Book says. I saw God at Walmart right there on the juice aisle.

 Assigned to the pet food aisles, I was in the middle of stocking shelves when a little boy with skin the color of a Hershey bar and a smile as wide as a jumbo pack of paper towels ran up to me. "Mister, I can help you with those boxes!" he exclaimed as his mother walked up the aisle toward him.

 "Well, buddy, I'm supposed to do this myself. It's my job," I told him.

 "But you have too many things to put up. I don't mind, I can help," he pleaded.

 The momma shrugged her shoulders and smiled, explaining the little boy's uncle was teaching him that helping others was like helping Jesus. How do you say no to that? "Here ya go, man. Put that bag of cat food right there." He practically danced to the shelf as he helped me stock. Two or three minutes later momma told her boy it was time to finish shopping. He grabbed her hand and skipped down the aisle, throwing a quick wave my way as they turned the corner.

 A wise king once said, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." I saw God at Walmart in that little boy, and silently thanked Him for the boy's uncle.

 Yep, I see God at Walmart. But to be honest, seeing God doesn't always make things better. The whole experience of a professional 50-year-old man working on the very bottom rung at the lowest pay scale of a retail giant's career ladder has been humbling, humiliating, eye-opening, exasperating, mind-numbing, faith-building, backbreaking, sweaty, character-building.  It's rarely fun. It's rarely fulfilling. I try to avoid friends and acquaintances from the community when I'm on the clock dressed in my blue and khaki. I once saw a man on the cereal aisle I'd counseled several times. He avoided my greeting and snickered as he turned away. I made my way to the bathroom and smacked the wall in anger and embarrassment. I've never been a very prideful person. Stubborn, yes, but not necessarily prideful. But I guess the walls of my heart have a little pride graffitied on them that needs scrubbing off.

 I sense God might have a hand in purging my pride at Walmart.

 The education of the spirit is sometimes the most valuable diploma one can earn. At Walmart the eyes of my heart have been opened to truths I should have already been aware of. I've learned that every employee of that big box store has a story. From the single mom who lives in the projects and hasn't missed her shift in over ten years to the young man who rides his bike ten miles every day to work instead of hanging out on the streets; from the elderly gentleman who can barely shuffle his way to clean the restrooms to the college girl who works double shifts on the weekends to pay for college; each a story, an important story, in God's eyes. These stories should be important to me also.

 So while I hope and beg and plead that this temporary place of employment comes to an end soon, I must give credit to the wilderness God has me wondering in. Here I've learned. Here my pride has been dealt with. And here I've seen God.

 At Walmart, of all places.

 What's your Walmart? What is the place in your life that doesn't make sense? I dare you to look for God there. I challenge you to be open to some internal scrubbing while you're there. I beg you to see the stories in those around you there.