He sent me a garbage truck.
I want to tell you about "the garbage truck sign." High intellectual stuff. (Really, it is!)
I don't know how in the world that my family generates so much garbage! Funny, how that a few hundred pounds or so can turn a distance of 150 feet into something like an Expedition to climb Mt. Everest. I used to pack three 40-gallon containers down to the curbside, every Sunday night. But I don't do that, anymore. Not since the waste management professional left one of those containers sitting empty and, obviously, way too close to the curb, during a violent windstorm. There must have been a lot of truck traffic on my street that night (judging from all those pieces...).
That was about four months ago. Just last week, I happened to turn onto a gravel parking lot at the electrical utility substation down the road a bit from my house and ~ lo and behold! ~ there lay the lid from my garbage can! And not a scratch on it! You never know when that a spare garbage can lid may come in handy.
So, now, I carry two 40-gallon containers down to the curb, instead of three. I find consolation in reminding myself that, somehow, that has to be more efficient. Still, there's a drawback to all that efficiency. It's not that I mind having to use a pile-driver to get three cans of garbage to fit into two. But it's like one of my Sherpas died and left me to pack his share of the Expedition's equipment.
Besides, now I have a spare lid. I tell myself.
The point is that I really can't afford to miss garbage night. No, you don't get it. I wanted to buy the heavy-duty model pile-driver, but Nyoooh; my wife said we couldn't afford it. And do you think she will let me store the extra week's worth of Expeditionary stuff in her space? I don't even bother to ask her. Did I mention that our neighbors have chickens? I've gone out there early in the morning ~ toward the end of the next week after that I missed garbage night, a couple of times ~ and it just boggles my mind how those chickens manage to get underneath that spare lid, and transform my trek to Everest into something more like an Easter egg hunt.
I was really tired last night. I came home after church (yes, I do go to church...here and there...until...eventually...somebody finds out about my blog...). Anyways, I came home after church, sat down with a snack in my recliner (my wife would get a kick out of that double-entendre), checked into the Web, put on my $700 headphones that I recently got for 25 bucks at the Goodwill (ka-ching!) ~ and went right off to sleep. On garbage night.
I think I recall that, sometime during the night, in between dreaming (I dream a lot!), somebody in my head was talking about it being garbage night, and how that I had neglected to.... Have you ever had the experience of being wrapped in a velour blanket and nestled in a properly-broken-in recliner, with a fan gently blowing cool air through your hair, in the middle of the night? I have.
Some time later, I heard that same guy talking, again, only this time it was much more annoying: Garbage night! "Shut up and leave me alone," I said, in my dreamy voice. "I've got till 4:50am, at least!" My waste management pro comes early ~ but never before 5:00am. And never later than 5:15am, I found out a couple of months ago...
After that, I couldn't quite manage to get all the way back to that restful place in sleep. Though not for lack of trying. But I kept hearing chickens pecking in my sleep. And, that guy yelling, Garbage night! "Oh, alright!" I might as well get it over with.
What time is it? What? 3:10? In the morning?! Just do it. Expeditionary checklist: shoes? check. jammies? check. All systems Go. Ugh.
I hate spiders. Man, did she clean out the fridge, again, or what? The grass is soaking wet! Ugh.
As soon as I unloaded everything at The Peak, I heard an unpleasant ~ though strangely familiar ~ sound. I turned around in time to see him bearing down on my position ~ weird yellow lights flashing ~ and that certain, loud, squeaky, metallic sound ~ a great hulk of shadow that seemed to block out half the night sky ~ it was my waste management pro! Hey! what's he doing here at this time of night? Doesn't that guy ever sleep?!
I still had boogers in my eyes. I wanted to help him out, by handling at least one of my pile-driver-packed containers. I had to squint, in order to see where to dump it in the gaping mouth of that behemoth garbage truck. All I could see were flashing yellow lights, and what seemed like waves of the ocean ~ a foot or so of water lapping inside of that bottomless pit. "Hey," I said, to my w.m.p.. He was a young guy; 20-something; white tee-shirt. No face. "Hey," he replied. "Thanks," he said. As he ran back and jumped in T-rex and drove away toward my neighbor's house.
I watched him. I couldn't believe he was running ~ at 3:15am! Sure enough, when he got to my chicken-lady neighbor's house, he jumped out of that truck and ran, again. You know that a garbage truck can only do like, what ~ 15 miles an hour downhill? Have you ever got stuck behind one of those things while driving? I have. But my w.m.p. can get that thing to burn rubber.
As I was slogging my way back toward base camp, I mused to myself: He gets paid by the job. When he's done with his route, he gets to go home and go to bed. I've heard that waste management pros make really good money.... Then, all of a sudden, I saw it: the garbage truck sign.
What was that guy doing there at 3:15am? He has never, in more than seven years, come that early; I know! And me? I didn't set an alarm clock to wake myself up at that unseemly time of night. And why didn't I get up the first time that that voice interrupted my sleep, reminding me that it's "garbage night"?
Oh, no! Did I tell the Lord to "Shut up and leave me alone!"?
- - - - - - - - -
God cares. And He knows. He knew what that band of hoodlum chickens were plotting to do to my Expeditionary stores ~ in the case that I inadvertently missed garbage night. (Every Sunday night, I see them hanging out beneath the bushes on my side of my neighbor's house...).
If He cares about how that a missed garbage night burdens my soul; then, does He not care that I'm being hammered by so many hard circumstances at this time? Oh, yes, He does. But His timing is perfect. Everything that He does, is perfect.
He gave me the "garbage truck sign," tonight, to remind me that He cares; He knows; and, that His timing is perfect. Everything He does, is perfect.
Be encouraged, friends. God knows what He's doing.
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