Walmart People

I was sitting in the car watching people arrive and leave the Wal-Mart. I am not a Wal-Mart people watcher by nature or trade. My wife was in the store and I was waiting for her.

I have to admit there were some pretty strange sights moving in and out of the big box store. Some seemed in a hurry just to get in and out. Others acted as if they were on the adventure of a life time; maybe they were.

I know it’s been popular to make jokes about Wal-Mart People and to post not very faltering pictures of them on the internet. I admit that I was tempted to snap a few pics of the folks I saw flowing in and out. But I saw some special things. Young couples obviously in love. Older couples making a date out of a trip to Wal-Mart. Young women with baskets piled high and a worried look that the food and supplies budget for the month might be busted.

Some folks came in and left very alone. Taking their time, making the trip take up as much of their lonely day as possible.

Wal-Mart people can be amusing and funny and maybe even understandable objects of ridicule. They are all people. They are so much like “us” that it scares us. We don’t want to be people who “have” to shop at Wal-Mart or who go for a social outing or who just look different from the people we see every day on TV.

I got news for you friend, we are all Wal-Mart people struggling to make sense of a world that seems designed for someone else. Looking for that something that will make it all make come together. Some will find the only answer, Jesus. That’s the difference between the Wal-Mart people who smile and greet you with “Have a blessed day” and the rest, who hope they really aren’t Wal-Mart people at all, but who know, deep inside, that they really are.