Just Some Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sunday morning was really rough. Not because it was Mother’s Day. I really enjoy the chance to show my wife and my mother a little extra recognition and appreciation. (I mean, seriously, I’ll use any excuse to give presents.) No, it was rough for purely physical and personal reasons.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir had just finished a week of recording sessions, and we were exhausted. We recorded Tuesday through Friday nights. Each time I go to Choir, it is my habit to leave early from work, go to the Lion House Pantry, eat dinner, and write (e.g., work on my current novel). This is my “sacred writing time,” and I try very hard to let nothing interfere with this. However, leaving early means that I have to finish my work-day at home, late at night. It makes for an exhausting week.
We finished our recording sessions on Friday night, and this allowed me to go to the Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Faire up in Marriott-Slaterville on Saturday. I am teaching my medieval weapons class each Saturday this month (plus Memorial Day). Yes, I know I VOLUNTEERED for this madness, but then, I can never resist an opportunity to show off my arsenal, talk weapons, and sell and sign books.
The bottom line is that I was plum-tuckered-out on Sunday (Mother’s Day), and I still had to do the “Music and the Spoken Word” broadcast that morning. Now, all that singing, recording, weapons-teaching, and book-signing equates to a LOT of standing. I have a bum knee, and I will have to have it replaced (AFTER I’m done with the Choir in three years and not before, thank you very much). So, I was taking my prescribed pain meds Tuesday through Saturday. The problem is that I don’t LIKE taking the meds, because when they wear off, they make me very sick. So at least once a week, I don’t take any meds to give my body a break, to reset, as it were. Usually, I do this on Friday night. But we were recording on Friday night, so Friday wasn’t a viable option.
So, Sunday arrived, and I decided to forgo my heavier meds that morning. “I can do this,” I thought. “Yes, I have to go home and bake a German chocolate cake (my wife’s favorite) and make dinner for nine, but I can do this!”
Well, about the time we got to the break between the run-through rehearsal and the actual broadcast, I was hurting pretty badly. And I was sick. I mean, I was ready to puke. (This is a side-effect of the medicine wearing off.) I didn’t have time to hobble down to the wardrobe room, grab my wallet, stumble to the vending machines in the maintenance break room, purchase a soda from the vending machine, consume it, burp violently (hey, gotta have that detail in here) to settle my stomach, lurch back to the wardrobe room to replace my wallet, then clamber in a most ungainly fashion up the stairs to the Choir loft before the broadcast. So, I was stuck. In fact, I was sitting outside the Tabernacle, eyeing one of the bushes as a likely spot to empty the contents of my stomach, fertilize the lucky shrubbery, and gross-out audience members. I mean, nothing invites the Spirit like watching a member of the Choir lose their—well, I actually hadn’t eaten anything, but…
At that moment, as I was about to bestow upon the bush the gift of stomach acid, one of the Temple Square missionaries, an older sister, walked up to me and handed me a bag of chocolate chip cookies.
She told me it was to thank me for helping her find an old friend in the Choir the week before. But to me, she was an answer to an unspoken prayer. Help me, Father, to get through this. And my regular readers will know my mantra for my service in the Choir—Not for my glory, but for Thy glory. And so, my Heavenly Father sent me chocolate chip cookies through this kind woman. I ate two, and they settled my stomach perfectly. (I shared the rest with some of the other men in the Choir.)
That random (or perhaps, not-so-random) act of kindness saved me that morning. And I am grateful. Very, very grateful.
I don’t ask the Lord to make my service easy, I only ask Him to make it possible. And He does. Besides, with God, nothing is impossible.
So, find opportunities to bestow random acts of kindness. Smile at a stranger. It costs you nothing (in most cities—although, in some cities I’ve visited, it might be dangerous). Say hello. Call a friend. Write an email. Give your mother a flower. Tell your wife, your son, your daughter, your brother, your sister, your friend that you love them. Mow a neighbor’s lawn. Do something nice and unexpected with no thought of reward.
You may save someone.
And you won’t do your own soul any harm, either.
They may not be just chocolate chip cookies—they just might be a miracle, an answer to prayer.
