Groceries

It was the day before Thanksgiving.

At least that what it seemed from the cars in the HEB parking lot at 8 o’clock this morning.

Eight a.m. – and people were streaming into the store.

“We have to go early,” I had told my husband.  “Or the shelves will be empty.”

But they weren’t totally.  Coffee was still available, and creamer to go in it – oh, happy day! The rest we will make do. We will all make do.

And the people were not rude. There was a feeling of we really are all in this together.  “This is crazy,” said passing strangers to each other. But more in empathy than in anger. 

Grocery-laden carts lined the aisles like Monday-morning commuter cars on the expressway, each one letting one in.

And somebody let somebody else get the last jug of milk. 

In the check-out line, a woman said she was picking up stuff for her sister who works as a nurse. I thanked them both. 

Yes, this is hard.  People are dying. People are losing income. The future is a huge unknown. It gets scary. 

Our only hope is to never forget that God can redeem everything and that nothing, nothing can separate us from God’s love. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – St. Paul’s Letter to the Church in Rome, chapter 8, verses 38-39.