Some Thoughts From the Grocery Check-Out Line

Is anyone else as tired as I am of hearing about (insert name of any one of a gazillion highly-paid, beautiful/handsome, arguably talented (or not) singers, actors, athletes or children-of-a-famous-family)? I was at the grocery store this morning with Boo, for when I opened the pantry, low and behold, we were completely out of baby food come lunchtime today if I didn’t make such a trip. Due to the recent condition of one or the other child being unwell during this week, my grocery planning has been rather hit and miss.

Anyway, to get back to my point (yes, there is a point to this), when you go through the check out line of pretty much any grocery store I’ve ever shopped in you are bombarded with headlines that just scream from the tabloids in the racks along the line. I don’t like celebrity gossip, and don’t read the magazines or watch Oprah or The View or any of those daytime shows that seem to feed off it, but avoiding at least looking at the headlines is about as difficult as avoiding craning your neck to see the wreck that’s been pulled into the median on the highway when driving past. Recently, as I’ve seen the headlines with one or another famous couple breaking up, getting together with someone else, having babies but never married to the father (or perhaps not even knowing who he is), living in a weird cult-like setting or just basically self-destructing, I’m struck with how lost some of these supposedly successful people really are. In the quest for fame, they've bought the lies of this world system. And they've arrived. They have the "success" the world offers. And in watching that, too, I’m amazed at how many people wish they could be right there with them having their fleeting moment of fame. (American Idol, anyone? Survivor, anyone?) And that fleeting moment of fame is fleeting. It cannot bring joy. It may bring material comfort, and even happiness for a season, but it cannot bring real joy – the joy of knowing Christ and having a clean conscience and having eternal life and knowing freedom from sin’s bondage.

When I was a kid, I had dreams of being a singer. I laugh so very hard at those dreams now, but they were real at the time. I mean, who wouldn’t want the fame and glamour and talent that goes with all that. Thankfully, not me anymore. I am truly thankful to be in blessed obscurity today! I just want to be wife and mom, thank you very much. I'm so glad that the Lord changed my desires and has taught me contentment here at home.

I think when people get up in the “famous enough for the tabloids” circles, there are just so many temptations, and so few people holding them accountable, that it’s just easy to lose their way – especially if they are not all that grounded anyway. And of the multitudes that are not believers at all, then they have nothing real to hold on to, and no way to avoid sin. They just get to demonstrate our fallen nature so very publicly. We all get to watch when a young starlet/singer very visibly self-destructs on the pages of the tabloids and no one seems to be able to help her or protect her from herself.

While standing in the grocery line one day, it struck me how very, very sad and lonely these people must be behind the glittery masks. In fact, it was so sad to me that I went home and cried and started praying for the ones that had so affected me that morning. Hell is real, and without Christ, these empty, hopeless lives will lead there. They need a savior. They need to know that there is hope. And the only hope is Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life. He is the only way to the Father, and He is the only One who can clean up any of our messes and bind up our broken hearts. And the people standing with me in the grocery line need that hope, too. I will never know those people on the magazines, but I do need to get out and get to know the people at my children’s school and in our neighborhood. And for a wallflower like me, that is a hard thing. But God has placed me here, and I want to be obedient to Him.

Mark 9:36
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?"

John 14:6
"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'"

Proverbs 31:30
"Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised."

1 John 2:15-17
"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life- is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever."


Oh, Lord, prick my heart with compassion for the lost and dying all around me. Help me to step out of my comfort zone and befriend my neighbors. Let Your light shine through me in such a way that I can plant or water gospel seeds as You lead. May You be glorified when lost sinners come to You in repentance and are then able to add their voices to the eternal Hallelujah Chorus of Heaven. Please change my heart that I will not be such a hermit, but will get out and get involved with the people in my community.