Calling for Help

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith For the Years of Winter…

There is a big snow storm coming, so it’s time for daughter Katie’s call from the store.

When daughter Mary Beth was in graduate school in Champaign, she shopped at the huge new Shunk’s grocery. One day the manager walked by as she was talking on the phone.

“Calling your mother?” he asked.

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“Whenever a young woman is calling from the grocery store, it’s to her mother.”

It’s true. For years, Helen has fielded calls about which kind of meat or pot scratcher to buy, how long it will take for a certain potential purchase to cook, if a persimmon tastes like a peach, if the cheaper cheese will taste okay in the planned casserole, etc.

We still get calls from our daughters when they are at stores, but they are not asking for help. They are offering it.

Katie’s call today will say, “Do you need anything, Mom? I’m right here at the store. I could run it by, so you won’t have to get out on the ice…”

One of the jobs of old age is learning how to accept help. If you can’t learn to accept help, it will be hard to trust God to get it right when you need help the most.

“Tell her to bring us some ice cream…”

JRMcF

{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}

(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)