Finding God in the Grocery Store

Hey everyone! This blog belongs to the “Advent Series” that’ll run from December 1st to January 19th. In this series of fictional short stories, I’ll be writing from different points of view, exploring how folks from various walks of life—from college grads to business executives to those in recovery—articulate why the meaning of Christmas, “God is with us,” matters to the people they come across. Through these fictional stories, I’ll be engaging with examples of how to have conversations (or not) about Advent in a variety of scenarios. Enjoy!

Helen was just getting to the end of the cereal aisle (when did organic, gluten-free, no-sugar added bran flakes get so expensive?) when someone rounded the corner and rammed their shopping cart into hers. Helen, a short, blonde woman who took careful pains to keep her hair blonde, jolted against her cart.

“Hey—” she started to protest, adjusting her sunglasses on her head. “Watch—”

“Oh, Helen!”

It was Rebecca. She was chatty, very thin, and wore the largest glasses Helen had ever seen in real life. They worked in the same building in adjoining departments, and Rebecca never missed an opportunity to stop by Helen’s office to drop off an extra coffee or a coupon, accompanied by lots of gossip and a blinding, $10,000 smile (she knew it was a $10,000 smile, because Rebecca had gone on, at length, about how her husband had paid for her veneers). Everyone in the office thought Rebecca was kind, if a bit much, and gladly invited her to Tuesday trivia nights because she knew a lot about the periodic table and bought everyone drinks.

Helen couldn’t stand her. Which was unfortunate because the woman was right in front of her, smiling like it was Christmas morning.

“Rebecca,” she said, “Christmas was last week.”

“What?”

“Oh, never mind,” Helen replied, embarrassed. “It’s good to see you! How have your holidays been? A good new year?”

“Yes!” Rebecca chirped. “We visited my husband’s family this year; they live in Nebraska, which was so snowy we could hardly get the rental car up the driveway, but then it made all the kids happy to go out and play, and they built a huge snowman in the front yard! My boy Ronnie caught an awful cold, like two days in, but he’s so sulky now anyway—he’s thirteen, you know—that I could hardly tell the difference.”

At this point, Helen was daydreaming of the faraway time of one minute ago where she was shopping by herself in blissful silence.

“Anyway, there was this whole thing right before New Year’s because my in-laws always have this big Nativity scene in their front lawn, because they’re religious, you know, and some of the kids built the snowman alongside all the people that are around the baby and they got upset, but then they couldn’t even explain what all those people are doing in the scene in the first place—”

“Oh, I could tell you that,” Helen interrupted. She was glad to move from her oldest son’s head cold into a more familiar area of conversation. “When Jesus was born, God used unexpected people to announce his birth. My church talks about this often.”

“I totally didn’t know you were religious! You should have told me; my second cousin Abigail is religious too, and she has this group that meets on Wednesday nights.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” Helen said. “But back to the Nativity.”

“Right. So what’s up with the people?”

Helen was starting to slightly regret bringing it up, but her friends at church often discussed how to have conversations with familiar people about Jesus. She could do this. Rebecca wasn’t exactly welcome, but she was familiar.

“Well,” Helen said, “there’s the shepherds, who were pretty much considered outcasts back then. They wouldn’t have been considered important enough for God to talk to them. Or the Wise Men, who were more like astrologers, or magicians, who practiced a foreign religion. Who would have thought God would speak to them? Or even Mary, who was a teenager having a baby outside of marriage in a time where that was really not okay. But still God spoke to her, and used all these people to announce the coming of Jesus.”

“Oh,” Rebecca said. She tilted her head. “So, like, your God wasn’t choosing all the big, important bosses and stuff.”

“Right. He spoke through people that other folks overlooked, didn’t see at all, or disregarded.”

Helen waited for Rebecca to ask another question, or change the subject. But she didn’t. Instead, the other woman hummed and moved her cart out of the way. “I think I get it,” she said. “It kinda sounds like Mike—you know, from your department? Nobody ever talks to him because he’s got that stammer, but it was him who warned the whole financial squad about the client who was siphoning money. Remember? Last June? Anyway, you should try talking to him. If you’re patient, he’s got a really cool story to tell.”

Just then, Rebecca’s phone started ringing. “I have to take this,” she said cheerily, “but I’ll see you later! Happy New Year!”

She darted off, her cart wheels squeaking, leaving Helen behind in a sort of stunned silence. It was a moment before Helen started pushing her cart again, wandering aimlessly up and down the aisles without consulting her list. Did Rebecca just understand her point? And even more jarring, did Rebecca tell her, Helen, something that she needed to hear? She’d never given much thought to Mike before, but maybe now she should.

As Helen neared the dairy aisle, she had the most stunning thought of all. It was possible, nay, probable, that God had just used an unexpected person to tell her something. She grabbed a carton of orange juice and tossed it in the cart. She felt like a box of oranges turned over, spilling all over the floor. This was the first time she’d ever noticed God speaking to her, through someone else. She couldn’t yet tell if she was excited, or confused, or both. But despite the disorientation, she realized that she could do something about it.

She could listen.