I just need a reminder today of all the ways God has blessed our Operation Christmas Child project in the past, so here's a story from 2006--
Whispers -- 2006
Maybe you should scale back this year. You prayed for all that toothpaste, and
now you’re overloaded with tubes of it and you probably won’t have enough
clothing items.
Whispers
of doubt about the Operation Christmas Child project creep over my soul almost
every day. Today is no
exception. The sidewalk sale
is going on again at Gabriel’s and I’m concerned, as always, that I’ll miss
their bag sale. A few days ago my
husband said to me, “What’s the big deal if you miss one?”
“The
big deal,” I replied, “is that I’d miss out on several hundred high-quality
brand name clothing items at dirt cheap prices.”
The
bag sale shouldn’t happen until this weekend—most of them are on Sundays—but
what if they have it this Saturday?
We’ll be at a church growth group retreat on that day. My mind spinning, I stare out the
window and pray, “God, I don’t want to miss this sale. If it’s Your will, please help me to be
there when it starts, and somehow I pray that this will bring glory to You.”
Putting
aside my bag sale obsessions, I boot up the computer and open an e-mail from
Heather Rowley. Heather’s a fellow
shoebox fanatic from Iowa who shared about Operation Christmas Child during her
recent appearance on the national TV game show Wheel of Fortune, and we’ve been
corresponding for a few weeks now.
I wrote to congratulate her on the article I just read about her on the
Operation Christmas Child website, and I sent her the piece I wrote about how
God provided for the shoeboxes we packed in 2005 after the tsunami in South
Asia.
Heather
writes “I am AMAZED at your stories. The Tsunami one I
think was my favorite so far.” Her
comment makes me decide to read that piece again, so I click open that file and
read of all the ways God worked to allow us to put together over 400 shoeboxes
in just a few weeks. How quickly I
can forget that God is the one in control of this project. Thanks to Heather, I have the reminder
I need this morning.
Buoyed
by memories of God’s grace, I drive out to Gabriel’s to do my daily check of
the sidewalk sale. It’s only 9:00
on this already-sweltering August morning, so I have plenty of time to scope
things out and then make it to church by 10:00 to meet another Heather—Heather
Rogers—so we can organize our shoebox storage room.
I
feel the heat of the pavement through my soles already as I cross the parking
lot and approach the racks of clothing lined up on the sidewalk. There is no cashier outside yet—only a
lone male employee whom I’ve never seen before. He isn’t even wearing the usual Gabriel Brothers’ blue
employee vest.
I
inspect some of the shirts that are already starting to get fade lines on the
shoulders from days of hanging in direct sunlight. “I wish there was some way they
could shade these clothes,” I comment to the man. “It’s a shame that they get ruined from the sun by the end
of the sale.”
“I
know,” he answers. “I keep tellin’
‘em they oughta get a roll-out awning to cover the sidewalk so we don’t haveta
take all the stuff in every time it rains. But they don’t listen to me.” He shakes his head.
“Well,
our church packs shoeboxes of gifts to send to kids in other countries, so I’m
always waiting for the bag sale to start.
We get lots of good deals that way.”
He
nods his head and moves off toward the store. There’s still no cash register or cashier in sight out here,
so I go into the store to look for bargains. A few minutes later, as I’m perusing a rack of children’s
clearance items, the employee I met outside ambles up, leans near my ear, and
whispers, “Just so’s you know.
There’s gonna be a bag sale today.
All you can stuff in a bag for $10.00—just for today.”
“Wow! Thanks!” I say, but he’s already walked on. I rush toward the front of the store, grab a shopping cart,
and head outside. With frenzied
movements I start yanking little girls’ shorts from their hangers, and in less
than a minute I’ve cleared a whole rack of them. Next I start grabbing shirts with the hangers still attached
and tossing them into my cart. I
can always get the hangers off later.
I’m alone out here right now, but you never know when someone might come
to challenge me for these treasures.
Now
I spot the cashier getting set up at her table, even though no cash register
has appeared as yet. My cart is
already whispering groans under its burden of several hundred items. I still don’t see any signs confirming
that there’s a bag sale, so I stride to the cashier and ask, “Is there a bag
sale today?”
“Oh,
no,” she says, “it’s still just half off whatever price it’s marked. They’ll probably have it at half off
all week and then have the bag sale on Sunday.”
I
glance at my load, heart sinking, and reply, “But someone inside told me there
was a bag sale today.”
She
shakes her head, “Not that I know of.”
Disheartened,
I begin the daunting task of replacing all this stuff. It only takes a few minutes to get all
the shirts that are still on hangers returned to their racks. Then I cringe when I see the hundred or
so pairs of shorts mounded in my cart that will have to be reattached to the
hangers I left swinging on their racks only minutes ago. Sighing, I pick up the first pair. Might as well get started.
Out
of the corner of my eye I see the manager walking up to the cashier with papers
in his hand. Whispers of hope
flutter around me like August fireflies.
Then I hear him utter those magic words, “There’s a bag sale today.”
YES!
A
bag sale on a Tuesday.
Amazing. And I didn’t miss
it. Incredible.
I
feel that familiar adrenaline surge, and I turn to yank those shirts off the
racks again. There is still no one
else here, and within fifteen minutes I have gleaned all useable items and
reaped a bountiful harvest of ripe bargains. Leaving my cart by the cashier, I sprint to the pay
phone to call Heather Rogers and tell her I’ll be late for our meeting at
church, then I hurry back to claim my treasure.
A
half hour later the cashier finishes putting clothing into the last of the
eight filled bags. “That’ll be
eighty dollars,” she says. And
when I hand her the money, she continues, “Sorry about the mix-up. I really didn’t know there would be a
bag sale today.”
“Oh,
that’s okay. I pray every day that
God will help me to be here when these sales start, and He answered my prayers
again.” She smiles and starts to
pile the bags into my cart.
Two
hours later, Heather Rogers and I stand in the church basement where we have
just finished sorting, folding, and counting the clothing in those eight
bags. The grand total is 465
wonderful clothing items. “Just
look at all this stuff,” Heather says. “Calvin Klein, Guess, and Aeropostale
shirts and all these nice shorts.
What a haul. And just
think—you almost missed this sale.”
“Yeah. If that man hadn’t whispered to me
about it when I was inside the store, I would have just walked out and drove
over to church. I mean, there was
no sign of a bag sale outside, and they’ve never had one on a Tuesday.”
“And
if you hadn’t pulled all those shorts off the hangers and felt you had to put them
back the way you found them, you would have been gone before the manager even came
out with the bag sale signs,” Heather reminds me.
She
pulls out a calculator so we can check the ‘per item’ cost for these piles of
clothing. Her fingers move over the
keys, and then she proclaims, “Only seventeen cents each!”
I
shake my head and hear new whispers—memorial stones to mark God’s goodness
being quietly placed on the altar of my heart. And a still, small voice that reminds me, “I will never
leave you. Even on a Tuesday
morning at Gabriel’s.”
