Lessons learned....

Since I have not sent a list of "things I have learned" in several months, I now would like to post a "Top 10 things I have learned from working at the area's busiest chain retail store bakery":

#10 - I do not need to watch TV soap operas. The real thing is so much more dramatic.

#9 - Every bakery worker must have carpel tunnel, shoulder, or foot surgery within a few years.

#8 - ALOT of parents are WAY too hung up on getting the shade of purple just right on little Lola's first birthday cake. (Come on, people! Little Lola is not going to remember this birthday...or the next 3 most likely.)

#7 - Most people, even if in a horrible mood, if treated with courtesy, friendliness, and a understanding ear, will respond with gratitude. (Most people....)

#6 - Some people, however, do not see employees as people at all, but see them as their paid slaves who they can treat with absolute contempt.

#5 - These same people usually will not even meet your eyes or respond to you when you ask "May I help you?"

#4 - A few tortured souls will dissolve into tears if the cake for Sally's graduation is not perfect. (Again, people, get a grip. In the large scheme of things....world hunger, wars, people dying and going to hell....the shade of maroon not being just right for Sally's graduation party is REALLY not life-changing. We'll do our best.)

#3 - I now fully understand why some people drink and play the lottery. (OK, Baptist friends...not saying I condone it....just saying I understand why.)

#2 - The hardest worker...the one that cares the most for doing it right...the one willing to get down on her hands and knees and scrub the floor to get it really clean...is the 70 year old grandmother!

#1 - When a retail store chain hires you as a cake decorator, what they mean is: we want you to go to the dock and load rolling flats of heavy boxes of bread dough and put them in shelves in the freezer...dozens of heavy boxes...every day AND stock the shelves with yummy goodies all day without getting fat AND give free cookies to kids and adults (and super fat employees) AND take out the trash AND take the boxes to the cardboard baler, load it, stand on a stool and pull down the gate and crush the boxes AND wash baking pans...lots of them AND price everything AND learn a CAO gun and scan out all old products AND go retrieve and organize product in a negative 20 degrees room size freezer where, even with a coat and gloves on, you freeze AND bake cookies and sometimes pies AND refill and decorate the cold case every 3 days AND ice cupcakes AND slice people's bread AND take orders AND spray down a cement floor with a hose and squeege it dry AND decorate cakes. Lesson learned.

God Winks

A few months ago, I read a book called "When God Winks at You", subtitled "How God Speaks Directly to You Through the Power of Coincidence" by Squire Rushnell. It is a much "lighter" book than I am used to - no deep theological debates...mostly stories of large or small things that "just happened" to people at exactly the moment they needed a sign or confirmation or encouragement. It was intriquing to me because so many times I have experienced this. And so has my eldest daughter.

My daughter, Vickie, came home from a wonderful "gap" program called Impact 360 in May 2007. Impact 360 (http://www.impact360.net/ ), while giving her 18 college credit hours, teaching her how to live in Christian community, giving her a community internship at the local Pregnancy Resource Center, and arming her with a solid Christian worldview, ALSO made her even more adamant about not incurring any debt. She is considering missions as her life's work. She also didn't think it was wise, as a woman, to saddle a future husband with a wife's educational loans. So....she decided she couldn't afford to go straight into college like all her other friends. Her frustration increased as she emailed and talked on the phone with her Impact friends that were enjoying college life and then crawled into the bottom of her little sister's bunk bed to retire early so she could get up before light to make greasy donuts and decorate cakes at the nearby Ingles. Near the end of her friends' first fun-packed semester she told me in tears that she still did not have enough money to go to college and would have to delay another semester. I felt for her so that I began to ask her to consider maybe a small loan so she could start in January 2008. "Maybe", I said, "You are being unrealistic to think you will have NO debt from college."

But she was determined to wait on the Lord. "No Mom. I am NOT going into debt for college. If God wants me to go to college now, He will provide the means."

And that He did. The DAY before classes started at Truett-McConnell College in Cleveland, GA, Vickie got a call from their offices saying she should show up for classes. The cost? The small amount she had in her account. She didn't know how she would continue after that but God had shown her a verse in her Bible study and devotion that very morning that (Joy's paraphrase) when God tells you to go...you don't even say goodbye to family...you just GO!" She went to Ingles, quit her job, threw her possesions in the car, and took off the next morning before dawn. When she got there the office told her that her work/study could be crisis pregnancy center work, something she was already trained to do, and that her post box number was 47, her favorite number; the school didn't know either of these things. It WAS as if God winked at her as He provided. Since then He has provided a FULL scholarship for her at Truett-McConnell.

This summer God winked at us again through Vickie. Vickie had signed on for a second summer as a staff member for the Worldchangers organization ( http://www.world-changers.net/ ). She ended up as part of the TX staff, which meant she would be even further away from us in the Cincinnati area. We were all very upset about this because, after a quick visit when Truett let out for the summer, we would not get to see her again until Christmas! Then I get an excited phone call from Vickie....her TX team was going to have to drive to a different area during an off week to take care of an inner city project. That project was in Cincinnati! Out of all the other teams, only the TX team had that week free and they were going to have to drive from Texas, manage the Cincinnati project, then drive back to Texas for the rest of the summer. Just a coincidence? I think not! Not only that but a second member of the TX team just had a brother and sister-in-law move to a tiny, little town near Cincinnati two months earlier...that tiny, little town was Walton, KY....where we live! AND that brother and wife was about to join our church! Crazy! Both families enjoyed some time together.

God doesn't always work so blatantly, but I challenge you to look for it. Did that friend "just happen" to call when you were feeling so lonely? IS it a coincidence that another homeschool family with a daughter exactly your daughter's age moved into town two months before you and are visiting your church? Were you really "just lucky" to have asked for a cake decorating job in that store JUST after their main cake decorator retires? I submit that we "hear" from God much more than we think. But funny thing is - you have to be looking AT Him to see Him wink.