I was pretty excited to find a line at the busy grocery store that had just one person checking out. You know that feeling, right? I bet you also know the feeling when you realize you picked the wrong line at the store. Like I said, I was pretty excited. I was able to immediately begin to unload my cart. I got about a quarter of the way unloaded when I had to wait for more room. I stood with a few things in hand waiting and watching. Everything moved soooooo slooooow. I kept my positive attitude, though. Maybe the cashier was having a hard time with something. I eventually saw the truth. She was just sloooow and I was stuck. Because, come on, I’m not going to reload my cart and find a new line. That would be mean. I would just stand there and wait––and complain in my head.

It finally was my turn. A lady behind me stood and waited and watched for a few minutes. She saw how sloooow the cashier was and decided to find a new line. Another lady came up and waited and watched. Same thing, she left for a new line. Man came. Same thing, he was out. I saw a supervisor or manager person walk past a few times watching her sloooowly do her job. So, instead of my eyes darting all over the store in boredom, I began watching her work. She never looked up, never stopped working, and wasn’t messing anything up.

Her small, shaky hands struggled to get the plastic bags apart. My impatience turned into understanding. “Those bags always seem to stick, don’t they?” She chuckled and said they do. She looked up, smiled, and continued working. It took her a very long time, but she finished. I swiped my card and it asked on the screen if I was satisfied with the check out time. No, was my first instinct. Then I changed my mind and pressed yes. I was satisfied because it made me stop and think.

We all need to slooow the you-know-what down. We expect to much from people. We want speed and we want perfection. I’m not just talking about wanting to find the fastest lines. We hurry with everything. We want the fast track. We want what we want when we want it. We want our kids to learn how to do this and that by a certain age. We worry and beat ourselves up when we see they don’t. We do the same for ourselves. Why are we so hard on ourselves? Why is there so much pressure?

We are so busy rushing that we are missing the small moments. To me, it is the small moments that make life meaningful. Your wedding day is just another wedding day without all the small moments throughout. I’ll never forget the night before my wedding when I found a card Matt had hidden under my pillow for me. I’ll never forget a sentence that the pastor said that made me forget all the people staring at me from behind…which made me nervous. It was just Matt, me, and the pastor after that point. All those small moments were what brought beauty into our special day.

Let me not forget about God in this moral of the story. In all our rushing we are at risk of drowning out the blessings that God has right in front of us. That cashier was a blessing to me and I almost missed it. Wow. I almost missed something that I needed reminded of very badly.

What blessings might you have missed?