Celebrating Life

So LB comes to me with this story:

When she was 6 or 7 she went to the mall with G'ma. They were in the candy store and when no one was looking, LB snuck a piece of candy and ate it. She's never forgotten it (she's almost 10) and would like to pay for it.

She asked if I would take her to the store and let her buy some candy and let the lady keep the change as a way to pay it back. I told her it didn't really work like that. I also knew that we were on the verge of something very unpleasant. So, Honey and I talked it over and agreed that she should just confess it and get it over with and make it right.

I knew she wouldn't like that idea....neither did I, but what to do? "The end of a matter is better than its beginning" so we decided to set off right after breakfast to get it over with. Her siblings took her place with the morning kitchen work so that hopefully she would be the first one there and it wouldn't be a big show. Really, who buys a bag of candy at 10:00 in the morning anyway?

Well somebody does b/c somebody was already there. So we pretend to look around till the somebody leaves and LB showed me the candy she took. It was the tiniest piece of candy in the whole store! Smaller than an m&m! Well Somebody wouldn't leave so we decided to just get it done. We looked around for the cashier, when out of the back room comes the grouchiest looking lady you've ever seen! Poor LB.

We prayed before we got out of the car, but I was really praying at that point! This lady looked like she'd call the police or something.

So we make our way to her and LB tells her the story and offers her 50 cents. Immediately her face softened and she smiled and told her all was forgiven. whew!
It was quite an emotional thing at that point. LB was crying, I was crying, and I thought that the grouchy lady was going to cry too.

So glad that was over. We make our way through the mall to head to the car. I hadn't had a very good morning. And while I was so happy that that was done with, it didn't help to make the day any better. I just wanted to get home.

Someone grabbed my arm as I'm walking by. It was a sweet man from our church. He's one of the door opener/greeter guys. He talked and hugged us and talked and hugged us some more. He was definitely a breath of fresh air. He didn't know we were moving and we talked about it a minute. He hugged me so tight you would've thought I was his own daughter moving off. Then he said over and over again, "God bless you. God bless you real good!"

Yes, I did feel blessed. And I thanked God over and over for sending him right then. That one guy was able to just turn it all around with his love and friendliness and make the day much better.