Walmart In My Front Yard: Negotiations Begin

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Dear City Commissioners:

Evidently you are proceeding with your plan to build a Walmart IN MY FRONT YARD despite my poignant story of what the cornfield means to the residents of Woodland Street.

So be it.

Here are our terms.  We, the Homeowners of Woodland Street and allied streets including Daisy, David, and Edgewood, hereafter referred to as HOWS, accept the commercial presence of Walmart and its satellites provided you gentlemen and gentlewomen broker the following privileges for us:

* Each HOWS will receive a personal grocery buggy that we can keep in our garages since we will not need to drive because we are closer to the coming Walmart than the mattress store is to the current Walmart.  HOWS buggies will be bright yellow to distinguish them from the gray general population ones.  Monogramming will be optional.

* HOWSes will have a small back access for ourselves and our yellow buggies on to the property through the thick wall of hemlock pines I am certain you intend to plant – a simple card-swipe gate for HOWSes only.

* HOWSes will have access to a walking/jogging path around the perimeter of the new facility with mile markers designated. No dogs allowed.  Really, this is the least Walmart can do.

* HOWSes will be provided light bars and sirens for our vehicles to allow ingress and egress from what will be a gridlocked St. Joseph Dr. onto Woodland Street and vice versa.

* Each HOWS will receive one jar of Nutella per month.  The 26 oz. jar, not the 13 oz. one.  Non-negotiable.

Believing these terms to be imminently reasonable, indeed generous, and awaiting your response, I remain,

Faithfully yours,

A Neighbor

I Accept With Pleasure

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Recently, in need of a more visible God, I began envisioning myself reaching out to hold His hand when I was straying, or in need of wisdom, or getting ready to open my mouth.  Just a little moment where I mentally held out my open hand in invitation to a hand-hold.

And being the kind of God He is, He lavished that tiny God-ward act with 10 times more than I asked.  The next morning in the pre-dawn quiet time, I read Isaiah 42:6:  “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.”

I am not kidding.  It was that clear and direct an acceptance, an “I would love to hold your hand!”

And lest I call it a coincidence, three days later He honored me again with Psalm 73:23, “Yet I am always with you, you hold me by my right hand.”  I was not doing a Google search.  I was reading from the Jesus Calling devotional for November written in 2004.

If the intricacies of the eyeball and the opposable thumb don’t convince me of a sovereign God, the immense unlikelihood of the timing of those verses selected 10 years ago for November 13th and 16th coming to me the day after I looked God’s way with an inarticulate plea does convince me.  Not just of His sovereignty, but of His love.  That He would look at a wall-flower and say He would love to dance.  That He would have His acceptance letter ready a decade in advance.  That He would flood, flood, flood with happy grace and love.

And all I did was hold out my hand.  Wow.