"Bring the Better Wine"

The Miracle of Water Turned to Wine

Yesterday I was shopping at Walmart for shirts. At the checkout I was cracking jokes with the clerk. She asked me if I wanted to keep the hangers. She said people use them for all sorts of things. I said, "and I suppose I could keep the price tags as... bookmarks."

There was a little old woman in her eighties who had finished putting her things in her basket ahead of me who came back to the clerk. She interrupted us and said, "I did all of that and forgot to pay you so I could take ice out of the ice chest on the way out the door. Can I still do that?"

The clerk said, "Yes," but did not explain how. So the little old lady stood there for a while waiting to figure out how to do that. She finally realized and asked, "Do I have to stand in line again then?" The clerk replied in the affirmative. She kindly began to wheel her basket around to about five patrons deep a line.

I said, "I'll buy the ice," but she didn't hear me as she headed around to the line. So the clerk told the lady, "she is going to buy you ice ma'am."

The little old lady said from the back of the line, "Oh; well, I was going to buy five bags of ice."

By now the 5 patrons-deep line of people knew what was going on and was listening.

The clerk had told me they were only $1.85 a bag so I said, "It's no problem I can do that."

So the clerk ran up the bill and I paid for it. The clerk said, "Ma'am you don't have to wait in line, you can go get your ice. It's paid for."

She wheeled back around and came up and said to the clerk and to me, "Thank you."

I replied saying, "Bless you."

She turned to leave and then turned back one more time to add, "The ice is for my grandson's wedding. He is getting married tomorrow."

"Wow," I said out loud. "Bless him too."

I heard several people in line exclaim their own version of wow.  The other people in line probably longed to rejoice with the little old lady.  I admitted to the clerk as she rolled away, "That -- was the Holy Spirit right there. I had no plans to be that awesome."

The clerk said, "It'll come back around to you."

I replied to her idea of Karma saying, "God is great."

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I remember Jeff Vanderstelt teaching Christians "bring the better wine" to celebrations.  The miracle of turning water to wine was the first miracle Jesus did in John chapter 2.



Nice people help little old ladies. Perhaps they even do it with a belief in Karma; the hopes of some cosmic payout from an unknown god.  But only YHWH arranges care for a little old lady in such a memorable moment of her life.

The only true and living God, YHWH, used frozen ice to bless a wedding happening somewhere in Salem, today.

Luke 10:20 says,

Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.

God lives even in me!  Celebration time!