The Old Lady at Wal*Mart or OATS on the side

I was leaving Wal*Mart this morning and this little old, frail woman with several bags in her hands was standing by the exit asking people as they left if they were going downtown. As each one passed, they replied, "No, I'm not."

As I walked by her, my turn came to answer 'the' question. "Are you by chance going down town?" the old woman asked me.

I followed suit like all the ones before me, I recited the same words as if it were some required answer that would cause the exit doors to slide open. "No", I said and the doors parted and I was free to pass through into the daylight of the parking lot.

I headed for my car caught up in my own thoughts, “I hate my life” circled my mind like buzzards over a road kill. This seems to be the egocentrical place where I am currently stuck. As I neared my car, a new thought seared through my brain. I was so focused on hating my life that I wasn't paying attention to the activity going on in it. I had just been provided a moment of opportunity to do something different and I had turned it down. How dare I think I was unlike or somehow more deserving of some grand opportunity when I was no different than any of those passing the old woman each stuck in the tasks of their own agendas .

I loaded my groceries, started the car and head back up to Wal*Mart’s doors. She was still there. I watched for a moment as she undauntedly asked each one as they passed. “Excuse, me, are you going downtown?”

I walked up to her and asked her if she was looking for a ride. She grinned, “Yes, I am…and you know I am.” And beamed, “I’m a child of God and I can see so are you.”

“I know I am”, I repliedwith the ususal the banality that I am embarrassed to admit.

“Thank you Lord”, she grinned, “Bless you child. I want to tell you all about the Lord as we drive.”

“Oh, Lord” I thought and took her bags and said, “Well then, let’s be off”, wondering what the heck I got myself into. She seemed so frail and she shuffled to my car where I got her situated. I was going to put her bags in the rear but she wanted her bags on top of her. “I only get $625 a month and I don’t want to loose what the Lord gives me”, she informed me self-assuredly. She spoke with such expression.

On the way to her home, she told me how she used to be an RN and showed me her tattered nursing card, which she still carried in her wallet. I saw that her name was Margaret. She said, “Yes, Margaret Geist”, and pointed to her name on the card. I used to work at Ozark Medical Center for many years. She went on to tell that her husband used to be the sheriff but that he was passed away in “nineteen and eighty-three.” She said that one day she saw Jesus, he was on a ladder, and he told her, “Margaret, no one can hurt you now, you are married to me.”

I looked into her face in hopes of reading some painful history there but there was nothing but an impish old countenance full of joy. She asked me if she could sing for me and of course I told her yes, and then wondered why such a request would cause little pangs of discomfort to arise within me. She pointed me the way to her HUD apartment building all the way singing songs of praise that she said the Lord had given her to write. Each time she would get a word wrong, like a child, she would stop and start the song over.

When we arrived I helped her into the building by taking her hand and walking with her. By this time, she was reciting prophecies out of the book of Zechariah and as we passed persons who were obviously staff, they rolled their eyes and giggled at her. I helped her into her one room apartment and set her bags on her table. I commented on how clean and tidy her place was. “We can be dirt poor, but we’re never too dirt poor to be clean”, she quipped.

She said, “You know they’ve been trying to evict me for praising the Lord.” I let her continue. “But the evil one can’t get me. He came just the other day with the housing authority, and I invited him in for coffee.” She explained how she banished him. “In the name of Jesus, I banish thee from here to leave without harm.” These words seem to spring forth from her whole body. And then, in utter excitement she told me that the housing authority made a phone call and announced, “Lady, we can’t touch you with a ten-foot pole!” And this frail, shuffling lady, started jumping up and down and clapping like a school girl.

I told her I had to go but she insisted on showing me one last thing. It was a photo of George and Laura Bush, which was sitting next to her chair. The photo was signed, “Thank you Margaret Geist for your service overseas. Laura & George Bush.” I feel bad for not asking what that specifically meant because I was genuinely curious about her. But by the time I set the picture down she was telling me about the man in the yellow raincoat, wearing white gloves who had brought her home last time. He had a yellow hat on and she could see the white hair underneath. He had told her that love shall bring peace and that God shall work his good into all things. She said, “ I wanted him to look at that picture but when I turned around he had just vanished...poof.” And then she pointed to the chair sitting next to the table with the picture. It had a throw on it with angels and in the weave it had written, ‘For me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.’ Margaret explained that the man in the yellow coat was an angel and he had left that there. She insisted that the throw hadn't been there before he came. She had never seen it before and on $625 a month, she couldn't afford such a thing.

“Everyone thinks the man in the yellow coat didn’t exist, but how can I describe him if I never saw him?", she argued. I’ve seen him here and there since…a yellow raincoat and white gloves. "He’s an angel of the Lord, you know, and he watches over me. You’ll see him too if you still your heart and look for him. You are a child of God.”

There it was again…stilling my heart. Seems to be my life’s main topic at present. ‘Be still, be present in the moment and know that I am God.’ Okay, Lord, in that moment I stopped and chose to step out of my egocentrical life and dared to do something different and You speak to me through an eccentric lady…it is almost uncomfortable.

At any rate, I bid Margaret farewell, and shut the door behind me. As I walked down the hall, I could hear her voice booming from behind her closed door pronouncing, “Praise Jesus, Praise God, Praise all the things He does for us, Praise Jesus…” I couldn’t help but smile, they have their hands full that’s for sure, I wondered what will happen to her.

I passed back through the lobby and one of the staff members asked, “Do you know her?”

“No”, I replied.

“Then why did you pick her up?”, she asked as if it really befuddled her.

“Because it just seemed like the thing to do at the time. I answered and then grinned; “I can see you all have your hands full with her.”

To that she laughed. “But”, she inquired with a more serious look, “Would you ever pick her up again?”

“Yeah, I think so”, and I walked to my car and headed home.