SHELF LIFE

Save Us All – (Tracy Chapman)

THE STORY:

Shelf life is the recommended maximum time for which products or fresh produce can be stored, during which the defined quality remains acceptable under expected conditions of distribution, storage, and display…

I remember standing in line at Kroger years ago in Oxford, MS. I can remember the exact lane. I was in a hurry and only had three items to buy, all the same item…so I stood in the express lane (and this was before self-checkout lanes existed) and I waited. I remember the lady ringing up my items, it was three boxes of ziploc bags…and she stopped, looked at me, and then decided to say something. It caught me off guard because I was in a hurry. But she looked up at me and said, “you sure are buying a lot of sandwich bags…where is all your bread and meat? You know…the good stuff!” All I could do was stare right back at her silently as if I had seen a ghost. I didn’t say a word back, I just grabbed my receipt and left as quickly as I could…because I knew the real reason why I had bought them…

But that story above is actually not the story I want to finish right now, I will come back to that one in the answer section…today’s story actually took place just a few months ago outside of the same Kroger in Oxford, MS. Me and some of my coworkers had the awesome opportunity through our company, Next Gear Solutions, to volunteer a couple hours out of our work day to help assist the United Way in a local food drive to help stock the Oxford Food Pantry. The Pantry in Oxford is a service that provides food for needy families in the Oxford-Lafayette community. Their slogan is “We Share Because We Care.” (Pretty cool slogan!)

Our job on arrival was to set out grocery carts out in front of Kroger and hand out a food list to anyone walking in the door who would be willing to help buy some of the items as they shopped inside. And if they did they could hand us the bag as they walked out. I volunteered on the last shift of the day with two of my coworkers. It was amazing…it was just amazing to see how many people were willing to donate and to show love for their community. Of course not everyone would be willing to help and they verbally wanted to let me know that sometimes but thats ok! But then something happened that made everything even more worth it…I remember it was getting toward the end of the shift and I was busy helping put bags into grocery carts and take them out to different cars to load them up before we took them to The Pantry. But I remember this lady grabbing my arm, and she handed me the only bag that she left the store with…and said “Here…please just take these…I used to be on the other end of this…waiting for food…I know what it’s like…and now I just want to help.”

THE QUESTION:

Why did that woman give all that she had away just to help someone else? Is there a way that we can all increase our shelf life? How many times have we all (myself too) seen someone outside a grocery store or a Walmart and quickly tried to walk into the store so they would not bother us for help? If we have the power to act…and the power to love…then when should we act?

THE ANSWER:

“I know Jesus loves me, in my heart I know it’s true. I know Mary’s little baby came in the world just to save me but I don’t know about you. My God’s a mighty big God, my God can shake the world up. Plagues and famines, frogs and locusts, walking on water, burning bushes, rolling the thunder, and parting the waters too…”

Tracy Chapman is a multi-platinum and four-time Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised by her mother. Her mother, realizing her passion for music, bought her a ukulele at just the age of 3…and Tracy was writing songs by the age of 8 years old. Widely regarded as a socially active musician, involved with numerous charities and organizations, Chapman says, “I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to do my work and be involved in certain organizations, certain endeavors, and offered some assistance in some way. Whether that is about raising money or helping to raise awareness, just being another body to show some force and conviction for a particular idea. Finding out where the need is – and if someone thinks you’re going to be helpful, then helping.”

1 Corinthians 16:14 | Let all that you do be done in love.

There is no expiration date on the shelf life of an act of love. It can truly last forever…Those canned goods and foods we collected that day at Kroger, that filled 4 truckloads completely full, all of that had an expiration date and will one day be bad to eat…but the love people showed and offered from their heart for their community will never expire. That is what God is showing us in this verse from 1 Corinthians…“let all that you do be done in love” because love never expires…I will never forget that moment that the woman handed me the only bag that she had and told me her words. And that is why we should show love in every thing we do. It only takes a little to love a lot!

Now going back to that day in Kroger years ago…those ziploc bags are what I used to distribute my product out to anyone who needed it…I don’t enjoy talking about but I try to include some of my testimony a little in each blog. I would take these bags home and cut the corners out of the bottom, and that would give me two perfect triangles that I would tie the ends up. It was almost a trademark for what I sold…and that’s all I want to say about that…but the lady at the checkout, just trying to start conversation, was absolutely right looking back on it now…what I was doing had no real “meat” to it, there was nothing good coming from what I was doing…if she had told me years from that day that I would be standing out front helping donate food to the Oxford Food Pantry and writing a blog about loving other people every ten days…ha I would have laughed at her and thought she was crazy…but that wasn’t my plan…it was God’s plan for my life. Just like Tracy Chapman sings in one of my favorite songs in this blog, she sings out “My God’s a mighty big God, my God can shake the world up”….well God sure shook my world up really good…and He can truly save us all at just the right time. God takes what we see as bad in our life, what we see that most certainly has an expiration date, and He gives it all LIFE, He loves us…no matter where you are in your life, He offers an eternal love and eternal life…and eternal “shelf life.” Our life here on this earth is so short and everyday we have these opportunities, and some are just simply offering to open a door, say hello, or give out a smile, but when we are blessed to have the power to act and show someone love, we should never hold back…help increase someone’s shelf life today…even your own…and let all that you do be done in = LOVE. Nothing is impossible…

Proverbs 3:27

27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.

(Listen below to Save Us All by Tracy Chapman)