About seven years ago I used to work at the Family Christian Store in Fort Wayne Indiana.  While I worked there, there was an older man and his wife who would come in every few weeks.  I don’t think that they were all there.  We would typically have two employees working so one would stay at the register and the other would try to follow these two customers around.  Why, you might ask?  Because they would steal books from us.  The man would wear a big trenchcoat looking suit jacket he would stuff books in his pocket.  The wife would just shove the books down her skirt.  Weird!  Anyway, we could never catch them stealing becase they would split up and there was only one of us available to follow them around…

So, yesterday I was eating lunch with Tyler Ash at Pizza Hut in Wabash.  We were just sitting there enjoying lunch when Tyler requested that I check this guy out that just came into the restaurant.  I looked and there stood an old man and he was holding orange ear muffs.  Not the kind that you wear when it is cold.  The heavy duty kind that you wear at the airport when you are directing the airplanes.  As I looked at this man, I couldn’t believe who it was. 

I began telling Tyler about this man and how he used to steal from the Christian Store while the man was waiting to be seated.  Well… after a few moments we noticed that he was leaving.  We watched him leave and he got into his Park Avenue and he drove away.  We couldn’t believe what happend next.  We noticed, because it was close by, that he drove to the Christian Bookstore in Wabash.  What a coincidence.  Tyler at first didn’t believe what I was telling him but when he saw that, he was beginning to believe. 

About fifteen minutes later the man showed up again.  This time he got a seat, and it just happened to be the booth right next to Tyler and I.  As he sat, we couldn’t help but notice that he was wearing foam ear plugs in his ear and he had a book with him.  He sat down and ordered an iced tea.  That was it.  No food!  When the iced tea arrived, he pulled out a large bag from his pocket.  Apparently he felt the need to bring his own sugar packs.  He dumped about twenty packs into his tea and began to drink.  He then took his ear muffs and put them on, apparently trying to block out any possible noise.  He began to read.  Not like you and I, but in the middle of the day he pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and began to use it to assist him in reading. 

Since school was out early that day a student from our youth group came over because she couldn’t help but see how hard I was laughing.  She got her camera our and took four pictures.  I will post those pictures as soon as she sends them to me.  They are great!

May God bless your day, and may this story make you laugh a little.  Don’t laugh so hard that you wet yourself.  Just laugh a little!  Well… I guess you can block out the world with your ear muffs, but you can’t block out reality.  You can do all you want to run and hide but everywhere you go, God is right by your side.  Have a blessed day!