Trials at Walmart

Every week I preach about peace, patience, love, and a attitude that mirrors that of Jesus Christ. However, every week I also find myself at the local Walmart department store where these very qualities are being tested!

First off, I hate to shop, not because I don't have time to shop, but because shopping is not enjoyable. So, unless I am in need of something specific I will not be out shopping. Further, if I am in need of something specific I will head for the closest parking spot and take the quickest and most direct route to the product I am in need of and then take the quickest and most direct route out.

Combine this general hatred of shopping with a department store where the isles are barely wide enough to fit two carts side-by-side, a department store that has built a niche of "end caps" - meaning that the narrow isles are all that much narrower, and a department store where, on average, one checkout lane is open for every six people desiring to "checkout", and my peace, patience, and love begin to fade way.

Then, you top this off with the numerous people you will encounter on a typical trip to Walmart - not to pick on any particular group of people - and I have quite a bit of trouble mirroring an attitude like that of Jesus Christ.

• Just the other day I watched someone push their cart directly into a parked car, shrug their shoulders and then walk off.
• Last year I saw a woman spit in a man's face before getting in her car and driving away.
• Yesterday I woman was walking in the crosswalk as I sat waiting, she stopped and stared at me, threw her hands in the air and yelled "what are you looking at?".
• A month or so ago I came upon a guy working on his car in the middle of the parking lot, in the middle of an isle - I had to cut turn around and go out the wrong way because he blocked the entire isle.
• Some time back a group of kids on Razor scooters came out of nowhere and I almost picked one of them off.
• Once I saw three teens laying in  the middle of the parking lot after dark - two of them wearing black shirts.
• I can go on, and on, and on...

I believe - half-joking here - that Walmart is what Satan uses to tempt me and to try me in the way I respond to others. Several times my wife has had to remind me that I am a Pastor in this town and - on any given Sunday - the people that I encounter at Walmart could walk into our church.

So what do I do? Rather than getting frustrated in the isles or the checkout lane of Walmart, rather than yelling at or injuring some of the people in the Walmart parking lot, I simply send my wife!