I felt like the opposite of a million bucks. Like double negative one million bucks. There would be no selfies documenting this mother/daughter shopping trip.
It was springtime and a plague had descended upon our elementary school. Lice. It makes my head itch to even type the word.
My hair, slathered in coconut oil, was tucked beneath my Prince tennis cap. I felt like a mess and I looked like a mess as I walked up and down the aisles of CVS looking for tea tree oil because I was determined to suffocate these little pests that were wreaking havoc on my schedule, my life, and, at the moment, my self-esteem.
A clerk asked if I needed help, and I quietly told her what I was looking for.
“Hey! Henry!” she yelled from the center of the store. “She’s looking for tea tree oil! Where is that?” Other customers turned toward her voice and I literally wished the ground would just swallow me up.
Instead, my daughter came around the corner holding a bag of Dove chocolates. She looked cute, coconut oil and all, her long hair pulled up in a pretty scarf. She held up the bag of Doves and smiled.
“I think we need these today.” She knows Dove is my favorite because it has messages written on the inside of the wrappers.
If there was ever a day we needed chocolate, it was this day.
We bought our tea tree oil and chocolate, got into the car, and a wall of tired hit me. I was tired of doing laundry, tired of feeling itchy, and tired of combing through everyone’s hair.
I was weary.
I took a piece of chocolate from the bag, slowly opened it and read the words on the wrapper.
Rock a bad hair day.
If there was ever a day I needed this chocolate, it was this day.
Those words were printed by a machine in a factory in Pennsylvania and wrapped around a piece of chocolate that was now sitting in my hand in Mississippi, on the worst-bad-hair-day-ever. Crazy, right?
I felt like God was saying, “I see you. I am with you. I haven’t left you to deal with this on your own.” I thought about the friends who had come over the night before to show me what lice looked like and how to treat for it.
He sent them into the middle of my itchy mess…and they came, even though they had just cleared the plague from their own homes. If I needed to talk about my weariness, they would understand and encourage me. They were with me.
And then, God saw me, walking into the store feeling the opposite of a million bucks, and He wanted to remind me that He is with me too.
I sat there, smelling like coconut oil and chocolate, and I felt loved.
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Have you had a time when you sensed God reaching through circumstances to remind you that He is with you? I’d love to hear about it!