the delights of grocery shopping

"She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar" (Proverbs 31:14).

Lately God has been encouraging my heart with much-needed words of truth at just the right times. One that may seem a little funny but which has really kept me going is this one that is part of the passage about the excellent wife. I think of it every time I go grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping for our family looks like me driving 75 minutes one-way every other week with two small children so that I can purchase healthy, preferably organic whole foods for our family of four at a decent price. Today was the first such trip in nearly three weeks, and it was simple and yet complicated like all the other such trips.

Today's trip was meant to be taken along with Keith, but he was sick and so we left him at home, well-stocked with recovery foods. We had a nice, uneventful drive to the city, where I toured around the Farmer's Market with my two under two in the stroller for half an hour or so. We browsed the lovely booths and bought cheap organic produce and finished up with an impromptu picnic on the grass. Then we went to a grocery store, where we met up with a dear friend for a visit  before embarking on two hours of grocery shopping. Finally, we headed home, stopping at a park halfway so that the little ones could stretch their legs.

Sounds so sweet and simple, doesn't it? It is incredible to me that such a thing can take so much preparation, work, and time: cleaning the car days before the trip so the stroller can fit along with groceries, getting the kids ready for a day away from home, driving during their naptime, nursing Abraham in multiple parking lots, keeping them both happy for hours and hours on end while simultaneously finding the right foods for the best prices. Then there is the drive home in which both kids begin to fall to pieces as their mama simultaneously loses her last dregs of energy!

Every part of the journey has interesting challenges, but the getting home part is always the worst. Today's trip home included Abraham deciding he simply could not tolerate being awake and alone in the carseat, even after I stopped for twenty minutes to play with him while Rilla slept. I had planned for this, though, and so we stopped again at a playground. Rilla played with another little girl who helpfully pushed her a little too fast down a "weee" (Rilla's word for slide), resulting in my baby girl's first all-out laid-flat, smacked-to-the-ground moment at the end of the slide. There were tears. But she got over it, we left, and Abraham fell asleep. Safely on the road again! But then... a bear galloped in front of our car. Praise God that our grinding, need-to-be-replaced-next-week brakes managed to stop us five feet short of a collision! Everything fine again but then... ten minutes later, Rilla puked. And so it went.

Altogether, we managed to avoid running over five deer, one rabbit, some quail, a big young bear, and a turkey. More than just a lot of driving around, though, we managed to accomplish our day's mission by purchasing excellent foods and spending less than $90, including gas, for the whole day. Abraham was in high spirits when we arrived home, and if Rilla was not quite so happy, it's not because she didn't have a good day.

I share this story as a glimpse into our daily lives but also to say that the verse at the beginning of this post did not make all that much sense to me a few years back. Bringing food from afar? What? Where's the excellence in that? And why would anyone care about bringing food from afar anyway? But now, believe me, I get it!

And as I gaze at the counter and table now laden with groceries waiting for me to put them away, I take a deep breath and smile and comfort myself with the thought that God thinks I am an excellent wife. And at least I won't have to go grocery shopping for another week!