A highlight of the day was that my favorite lemonade, Santa Cruz organic, was on sale for 25 cents at QFC. Normally, it is almost $3, which means it is a rare indulgence. But, the sign said 4 for 5 bucks, plus there were coupons for minus a dollar on each one. Because I am bad at math, I thought for a moment that they would actually be paying me to buy the lemonade. Nope, turns out 5/4-1 is not less than 0. Anyways, I still got them for a steal, even if I did not make a profit.
I walked to QFC three times to bring home my large, summer supply of lemonade; with the help of Stacy and Naomi, I brought home 21 jars. The second time I went I dropped one of the bottles and spilled it all over the aisle, which was particularly embarrassing in light of how I was raiding the whole supply. I know that it sounds terribly selfish, but the sale ended at midnight, so at 10 pm I felt totally comfortable clearing out the shelf. I just could not believe I was the only one who seemed to care about this sale.
The other good part of the whole situation was that Mr. Grocery Man finally cracked a smile. I see him almost every other day (the grocery store is just around the corner, so I frequent it) and he hardly looks at me. I try to be my sunshiny self, and I sense I am bothering him, so I have just quieted up. No asking him how his day is, no sharing how excited I am when chicken fryers are 99 cents a pound. But, tonight, Mr. Grocery Man finally smiled the 3rd time he had to ring up my vast quantities.
I now have 21 lovely jars of lemonade under my bed. Please, come over and we shall share a cold glass. My only hope is now that I have in abundance what I consider a delicacy, that I will maintain my deep joy in every sip, and not take it for granted. I should probably make rules about consumption—sort of ration it out so it lasts until Christmas. But, who wants lemonade in December? No, perhaps I ought to just indulge as much as I want. It is difficult to for me to know what to do with abundance.
Which leads me to a conversation I had today with a professor about grace. I realized I like to portion grace out in very small quantities, living my life as perfectly as possible so I do not need the luxurious abundance of it. I ration grace out to myself, not taking too much, though there is a supply much larger than the lemonade under my bed.
I think I ought to indulge my lemonade supply as a little exercise for myself….
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3 comments:
"Joy is found in a person, not a thing. At its deepest and truest, joy comes from God himself, not fromt he things he does for us or the feelings we get when we sense him near. God's good gifts and the lovely sensations we experience in him are like footprints in the snow: to fixate on them is to miss where they lead. If the joys do not lead us to Joy, they are worse than useless; they are bitterly disappointing since they will pass away. To make a joy in Joy kills the joy." -Ben Patterson
I say, enjoy the lemonade with full abandon, just don't fixate on it; fixate on Grace! (...I mean grace...) Ha!
I do believe God shows us his grace through abundance, as you can tell by my 20 bottles of lemonade in our cupboard.
I hit the same lemonade sale last year! I love it! We didn't have the extra deal with the dollar of though.
Autumn
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