be careful what you wish for

Last week, I posted about the disconnect between what I do and what I say (see Keeping Your Parents' Commands). One of my thoughts was:

". . . I ask her [my daughter, Grayson] to put others above her self even though I haven't served a Wednesday night at Grace in the three years I've lived here. "

Be careful what you wish for. On Tuesday, one of our readers (ok, ok, my mom) sent me an email from her friend Janet. She said the Hospitality House, which normally serves breakfast to ~150 homeless men and women on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday was going to be closed this week. Janet and her friend Michele knew that these folks depend on these meals and so they decided to make it happen. They would serve breakfast on Thursday and Friday, but they would need some help.

I meet at Biscuitville on Thursday mornings with some guys to do a bible study . . . and watch the occasional headline like "world's largest cat" on their TV tuned to CNN Headline News . . . and catch up on fantasy football . . . and other Godly things. Anyway, we decided to feed the homeless instead of ourselves.

I showed up at the Salvation Army church at 6:00 to help cook then over to Grace to serve it at 7:00. My job was to hand out 'good mornings' and coffee with my friend (no longer just my mom's) Janet. I would fill up the cups, and then Janet's kind-hearted part would go something like this:

"cream and sugar?"

"yes, please"

"now, we've run out of regular sugar but we've got pink, blue, and yellow"

"hmmm."

"you seem like a yellow [or pink or blue]. what do you say?"

"[usually now smiling] that sounds fine, thank you, ma'am"

"there you go, how's that?"

"one more please, ma'am"

"what are you trying to do? make it as sweet as you? it's not going to happen."

[more smiles]

So, I went back Friday too. Highlights:

• Seeing people's faces when I remembered their names from the day before.
• Getting to know a guy who was working at A&T. He just moved up to full time with benefits at $8.00/hour. He told me how god keeps on blessing him but he keeps screwing it up. (that's us in the picture.)
• I got to talk with a older man, who lived under a bridge, but was thankful for the cooler weather and the public library.
• Around 8:00 I saw a guy looking in from Lee street as the crowd had dwindled down and we were all packed up. I waved him in and met him with a 'to go' plate and was met with a "Thank you so much. I thought I wasn't going to make it."
• I got to talk to two guys about mowing lawns for a living. How the draught over the last two years made the grass grow slower and their workload (and paychecks) less.
• And everything in between.

I know even though I just had a bowl of cereal both mornings, I couldn't have felt more "full" if I had had three sausage and gravy biscuits . . . with hash browns.