Babe Ruth sparks memories

I bought a Babe Ruth candy bar yesterday. I can’t remember the last time I did that.

But I can remember when I used to do it regularly. It was when I was in high school.

My friend and I would go to the drug store after seeing a movie and we would each buy a candy bar. Mine would always be a Babe Ruth. I can’t remember right now what hers was. I’ll have to ask her next time we talk, which we d not regularly but pretty often.

I bought it yesterday because Mary bought a Payday and I couldn’t find anything in dark chocolate except a Mounds and I don’t like coconut and chocolate a whole lot.

We bought candy and a small bag of chips to share while she received her chemo treatment. They were running late because all the Monday –a holiday, remember – people had to be inserted into the schedules on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Anyway, her 11 a.m. appointment to see the doctor was delayed until 12 and he suggested we go get lunch before coming back to the procedure room. We did and bought stuff on our way back in.

It was 2:15 before they had her all hooked up, and I ate my candy bar.

I told her I couldn’t remember what was in it or whether I would still like it after all these years. She assured me I would.

And I did. In fact, I ate the whole thing.

Then I sat with an open book in my lap and watched her work her cross word and word search puzzle book.

And thought about how much and how little I know about her, my daughter.

And about the fact that I know next to nothing about any of the other patients in their recliners except that they have sne kind of medical problem and are receiving some kind of chemotherapy.

I was reminded of trips by train from Jacksonville to Atlanta when I was a girl and shared a lower birth with my mother. I would wake early and let the window curtain up just enough to watch the countryside go by. And I would wonder about who lived in the houses where lights we on and whether they wondered about who was on the train speeding by.

Not deep thoughts. Not new thoughts. But I thought again about the staggering wonder that God can know all this about us and about everyone everywhere.

I understand it’s called omnipresence – being everywhere at one time. Or omniscience – knowing everything. Or both, I guess.

But the long words don’t matter really. They are just short hand for something much bigger than they are.

Jesus knew all about the woman at the well. He knew all about the hearts and thought of all the people He met while on earth. And He still does. He knows all about me and all about you.

And He loves us anyway. In spite of ourselves. And anywhere. Everywhere.

Including my friends David and Deborah who are right now in South Sudan living with a native family of a tribe that had seen no white people until about two months ago. Them, too.

And all the rest. All at one time. All at every time.

Beyond my comprehension. But not beyond my desire -- sitting there, full of too much sugar -- to give Him thanks and praise.

So I sang a little love song to Him, quietly in my head.

NOTE: I started this Thursday and finished it today. In between, the computer decided not to work. I don’t know why. Along with a lot of other things I don’t know.