Checking Out with Jesus

Phyllis Edwards experienced Jesus breaking bread and sharing it with her but it was not on a dusty road in the Holy Land.

Rather it was in a grocery store checkout lane in Tangipahoa Civil Parish.

For Edwards, who lives in the Amite area and is a member of St. Helena Church in Amite, “going to town” means packing errands into one day of driving. She had a medical appointment that was an hour away and “sorely needed some groceries.”

“Well, I thought, I can do both things on the same day. I can go to my appointment and then on the way back home, stop at (a retail store half-way between the doctor’s office and home) for my monthly grocery shopping. I had my list prepared, and it was long,” said Edwards.

After the doctor visit, Edwards went to the store, which was crowded.

With a buggy full of groceries, Edwards waited in the long line.

“Finally, my turn came and I unpacked my overloaded buggy. The cashier rang up everything and between us we got it all back in the buggy. Now all I had to do was swipe my Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) card,” Edwards said.

She swiped the card and the message, “Not Approved,” flashed. She swiped a second time and the machine repeated, “Not Approved.”

Panic set in for Edwards.

She told the cashier, “No, that can’t be right. I got my food stamps today, it was on the same day as my doctor’s appointment. I just left from my doctor.”

The cashier called a manager, who also tried swiping the card, but to no avail. She asked Edwards if she was sure her food stamps came in that day, and Edwards confirmed that she always received her food stamps on the 10th of the month.

“I eyed the buggy, full of bagged groceries, spirits sinking as I thought of having to put all that stuff back. I thought of the poor man behind me with only two items, waiting patiently. I looked at the long line that was building up behind me. I swore I could hear grumbling and mumbling coming from the people in the line that kept getting longer and longer,” said Edwards.

Looking at Edwards with sympathy, or perhaps pity, the manager told Edwards, “But hon – today is not the 10th.”

“What? Not the 10th? No, that’s not right. It has to be.  I had a doctor appointment on the 10th and I just went,” Edwards said.

Tears welled up in Edwards eyes as the thought of all the things that could have gone wrong, perhaps her food stamps were canceled and she worried about what she was going to do for food.

The man behind her spoke up. She assumed he would say something like, “Move on out of here and let me pay for my things.”

But instead, the man said, “I’ll pay for it.”

“The whole line went completely quiet. The lane next to mine was completely quiet. Everybody was focused on this man, staring open mouthed as they heard someone offer to do the unthinkable: pay for a total stranger’s groceries,” said Edwards.

Shocked, she said, “I can’t ask you to pay for that.” He replied, “No, you didn’t ask. I’m offering.”

When she asked him, “Who are you?” he said, “It doesn’t matter who I am.” He smiled as he passed his card to the cashier and paid for the groceries.

“I was shaking so much the manager helped me push my buggy toward the door,” Edwards said. “I couldn’t yet go outside – I had to sit on a bench and collect myself. I felt like I was in a dream and would come out of it   with an empty buggy, and no groceries.”

She pondered, “What just happened?” and drove home in shock. 

When she got home she checked the calendar and discovered that the doctor’s appointment was on the ninth, not the 10th. She thought the day’s date was the 10th all day.

Soon after that Edwards made a divine connection with her “chance” encounter at the store.

She called her cousin and told him what had happened. He mentioned that after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus met two of his followers on the road to Damascus and they didn’t recognize him.

“That’s me!” Edwards exclaimed. “ ‘I met Jesus in (at the store) and didn’t recognize him. He was just an ordinary man with two items in his buggy. But he fed me that day.’ ”  

The two also talked about a passage from the St. Matthew’s Gospel in which Jesus said, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
 

When Edwards attended Mass that Sunday, chills went through her as she believed she was hearing words of confirmation as the same Gospel passage was read.

A retired teacher who taught math and science for about 33 years, Edwards said she still finds herself learning, especially when it comes to matters of faith.

“I am lucky to have been born with the gift of faith, and also raised. I have learned how important it is to have faith in him in all things,” said Edwards. “Most important of all, I have learned to give my problems over to him.”

She said God has always taken care of her, but she may not recognize it until afterwards. It may come by a friend, or in the “mail or by a man at the grocery store.”

People say, “God doesn’t answer my prayers. Yes, he does. There’s so many good things that happen,” said Edwards. “He  is always working in our lives, we just have to recognize it.”