The Coolness of God - a Lesson in Fiscal Responsibility

A genius with money I most certainly am not.  So when my kids and I found ourselves at Wal-Mart this morning, staring at the newly released Avengers DVD, I was in a quandry.  It had been a strange morning, schedule all off.  I thought it might brighten all of our spirits to watch the Avengers, a show we had loved in the theater.  We could try the video store on the way home, but what if they were all rented for the weekend?  With payday a week away I could go ahead and charge the DVD, $20.  Ugh, charge it?  Not charging things, unless it's a necessity, has really been weighing on my conscience.  The kids agreed with me that $20 was pricy for a DVD and that the price would come down by Christmas; we decided the prudent thing to do was take our chances at the video store.

So we showed up to Family Video and lo and behold, there were copies available.  Score.  When we went to the counter and the young man pulled us up in the computer, he said, "Oh, I see you guys haven't been in for quite awhile.  May I inquire why?  You weren't unhappy with our service were you?"  We assured him that it was nothing like that, we had simply been busy.  The next thing out of his mouth caught me completely off-guard, "To encourage you to come back again soon, we want to offer you this rental today for free, plus some coupons for half price rentals."  Holy cow - what a funny, completely unexpected way for God to give a pat on the back, Matthew 6:33-style! I told the kids that you can't expect these kind of things, but sometimes the Lord sends them. (We also took it as His nod to the theological astuteness displayed by Captain America and the Hulk in the course of the movie.)  L'Chaim!

P.S. - Other life lesson brought back to me today - "If you are going to fry bacon, you had best be wearing a shirt." Learn, Live, Learn again.