The Widow's a Gas
Pure religion and
undefiled before God and the Father is this,
To visit the
fatherless and widows in their affliction,
and to keep himself
unspotted from the world.
— James 1:27
There have been Halloweens when my
kids have left the house to go trick-or-treating with the glue on their
costumes still wet. It's always fun, but we're always rushed. This last one was
no different, with pumpkin gook all over the kitchen floor, a mad dash at the
last minute for extra safety pins, and small escaped feathers wafting through
the air.
So when Grandma suggested late that
afternoon that we visit her widowed friend down the street so she could see
Maddy's costume, my face must have telegraphed that I was stressed out, behind
schedule, and didn't really want to go.
But Grandma gave me "the look." Halloween
is supposed to be fun for everyone - even recent widows, who might lonely on
this first holiday "after." And Maddy was so cute in her skunk costume. It was
inspired by the day she saw a skunk "sleeping in the grass" by the side of the
road in a construction zone near our home.
OK, I sighed.
What did I expect? That this old
widow would come to the door with a cane, and have a shawl on and granny
glasses, with doilies over the backs of her chairs? Boooooooorrrrrrrrring?
Once again, God showed me, with His
typical gentle humor, just how easy and rewarding it is to put yourself out
just a little, and be nice to others. I always end up being the one who gets
blessed.
The widow's face lit up over Maddy's
cuteness and my mom's thoughtfulness for bringing her down to see her. Then she
told us a story:
It seems that, when she was a little
girl on the farm, she had a pet skunk for a while. Her dad decided to relocate
it - the relocation process might have had something to do with a shotgun - but
she always remembered that skunk fondly.
As an adult, her husband had to
travel a lot on business. He would call home, and one night, he heard this
report from the kids:
Mom went to a pet store and bought
them a PET SKUNK!!!
AAAIIIEEE!!! Don't worry; the scent
sac had been removed. And of course, by the time the dad got home, the kids had
grown attached to "Tulip," her status secured as a family pet.
Tulip was a great house pet, with only
one foible: she hid behind the tall foot pedals of the organ to do
you-know-what. But other than that, the family and Tulip bonded beautifully and
all was well.
That is, until the fateful day when
the mom, a beauty in her own right, had to leave town to accompany Miss
Nebraska to the Miss America pageant. Who was enlisted to take care of the
children? The mother-in-law.
Turns
out skunks bond amicably to any household they join, but anybody else is seen
as an enemy infiltrator, the target of defensive maneuvers and attack. As soon
as the boys left for school and the mother-in-law was alone in the house with
Tulip, the worm turned.
With her fur erect, and hissing
forbodingly, Tulip chased the mother-in-law all over the house. She eventually
cornered her in the downstairs laundry room. The mother-in-law didn't know if
the scent sac was there or not. All she could see were those intimidating "mad
as a skunk" behaviors . . . and she 'bout had a heart attack.
There was a phone within reach. She
called her son. (Oh, to have been a little bird listening in on that
conversation.) One thing led to another, and by the time our friend got back
from her trip, Tulip had been . . . relocated.
Even though I get along great with my mother-in-law, I'm still
smiling with vicarious amusement.
It's just another reminder of how
you get blessed when you share the fragrance of the love of Christ with everyone
you meet, starting with widows and orphans. It's a treat, not a trick. It's
much better than being a selfish . . . stinker. †
