(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.
