11/20/08
Today is the anniversary of my eldest son’s birth, down to the day. He was born on a Thursday, Nov. 20th in Georgetown, Texas with the same doctor in attendance who was almost in attendance at my birth. I say almost because I apparently was in a hurry and he arrived in the room just after I was born, (Mom did still name me after his daughter). So here we are on a Thursday getting ready to celebrate his arrival into our lives 33 years ago. Many things have come and gone in the years gone by but we are now stepping into a time of new beginnings, many things have changed, and for us there is much to celebrate as we embrace the future that Abba has planned.
Hmm, speaking of planning, I have a wonderfully sneaky planning daughter-in-law (and daughter of heart) in Kat. She let us in on the basic plan, come to Texas Steak House, Thursday, the 20th at 7 P.M., bring the presents with us for Jose to open after the meal. Sounds like a nice simple plan and for us it was. Dave and I left from to go to Staunton a bit early since we still needed a card to go with the present and to do a bit of shopping around. This mission accomplished we almost had something which would have crimped the plan big time and our car as well. Going from the Mall to the Steak House a back winding road we were chatting when sudden seemingly out of nowhere a deer appeared in front of the car. I say appeared because we did not see it approach it just seemed to be there. Thankfully Dave has quick reactions and he slammed on the breaks, I think I closed my eyes because I didn’t see how close we came nor did I see the deer finish crossing the road, I just knew there was no thud, no airbag in my face. (a thanksgiving report, just a couple of days before Dave had my breaks replaced and I would hate to posit if the old ones would have withstood the slam stopping process, praise to Abba’s grace the new ones did!) I noticed something after the near miss, my heart was not pounding, I was not a nervous wreck at the near wreck somehow without even asking Abba had granted perfect peace and we went on our way kinda not giving the incident much more consideration, at least not replaying it over and over as we are sometimes wont to do with near misses. We arrived a few mins before the others but the restaurant noticing the gift asked us if we were part of the party coming in. Acquiescing, we were seated and our drink orders taken. Kat and Jose arrived just a few min. after. Jose and I became concerned about Kat when she needed to retire to the ladies room a few times in a short span of time. I asked him on the QT if she were ill? He said she had seemed fine before, later the mystery of the ladies room would later be solved. Jake and dinks arrived to be joined by Sarah when she got off work. We made our orders, made small talk and I noticed that the manager seemed quite solicitous toward us, unusually so it seemed to me. He took pics and kept coming by and well hovering is the word that comes to mind. Sarah joined us and we all ordered dessert. Jose stared the present opening process and seemed to be finished when we started eating dessert; however, the hovering manager soon appeared with a big box. I thought, ‘ahh, probably the Xbox Kat said she had wanted to get him.’ I was soon disabused with that idea when inside the box was another box and another and another. William whispered to me 15 boxes though I don’t think there were quite that many. I also noticed that all the waiters and waitresses were standing and watching as was the manager. Okay, this is fun but I thought ‘wow, I hope it is something good since they all seem so interested.’ Jose got down to a tiny box which had the Peanuts gang on it, I thought, ‘oh, she got him a Peanuts desk calendar.’ Cute, he loves Snoopy. He was looking at it saying thanks when Kat finally said, ‘open it’’ When he did it contained a key, not just any key because you could tell it was a certain kind of key, a car key. Jose sat there staring, Kat had teary eyes, my mind is processing this stunning revelation, the boys are asking Sarah, what is it? It seemed like a moment frozen in time. I think Jose finally said something like ‘baby, what have you done’. She said, ‘let’s go outside and see.’ I grabbed my coat and purse and we headed to the door. There in front of the door (in a no parking area) was a car with a big red bow and one the windshield it said, Happy Birthday. Stunned began to wane and realization took over. Nearly the entire staff was at the door watching as well. I was told later that the manager was actually crying. Pics were taken and Jose checked out the inside. I had a hundred questions but now was not the time for questions, now was the time for glorious celebration. Finally we went back in and as I was taking the dinks on necessary steps the waitresses grabbed me and asked, ‘what kind of car is it?’ I said I didn’t have a clue it was dark out and I wasn’t even really sure of the color (dark green). They told me to find out and let them know. I asked that question and Kat filled in the answer for me and I relayed it to them. I noticed that all the staff was circulating to tables relaying the story to the other diners. I watched as they did this and as others looked on as we continued to celebrate. Our waitress brought our checks and told Kat that Jose’s meal was on the Manager (hey he had ordered the biggest steak) an extra blessing.
Suddenly all the little ‘tells’ came to my mind and made sense. The trips to the ladies room were making sure things were in order; the manager’s hovering to make sure the timing was right. I had also noticed that when he handed Jose the present he had slipped Kat something which had puzzled me, I know extrapolated that it was the key that they had used to move the car into position.
All this celebration reminded me of Abba’s sneakiness. There are times when we don’t see His hand off of key, times when it seems as if He has left the table and leaves us wondering if something is wrong that we don’t know about. There are definitely times when it seems like we have more questions than answers, when we mistake one of His gifts for something far lesser and have to have Ruach’s prompt to get up and go see. Thanks Abba for the party You are preparing for us which I know at Ruach’s prompting can start right now.
k
