Do you ever think you were on Candid Camera? Feel like someone is pulling your leg? 

Today it seems more likely that we are ALL on Candid Camera because there are cameras everywhere. But the thing about the TV show Candid Camera is that they were trying to see your reaction to something strange – whereas we simply live in times that are strange… what a relief as well as embarrassment when Alan Funt came out…

And the thing about someone pulling your leg? Well, life seems that way doesn’t it? Sometimes you just feel like you’re being picked on – or hit a rut… “Isn’t it ironic?” That’s a song that covers that sort of thing, those annoying ironic or other things that go against your wishes or progress. (Trust me that things could always be worse – and we do both need to count our blessings and not sweat the small stuff – but I talk about little annoyances because we are really living in a world of brokenness and whatnot…)

Well, recently I was in the laundromat, because I like to accumulate all my icky garden gloves and old crocs and old sneakers, and so I prefer not to wash them in my nice washing machine (go ahead and judge me, but well that is what I do…)… So it may seem a little cruel to bring it to the laundromat, but for a few dollars, I’m treating myself… So I went up to get some change, and a lady had just lost a twenty dollar bill in the change machine. UGH… She and a gentleman and I discussed it… We urged her to call the phone number listed (and she got her money back don’t worry). She packed up at that moment with no more money and left apparently without doing any laundry. I got my change okay using the other machine, but then my washer wouldn’t start. UGH… I’m like, is this double candid camera? Is there an electricity issue? I don’t know, but I truly felt like I (we) were being picked on… why Lord why?

So I go back to the machines to find that phone number and call it. Meanwhile, I look at the change machine and the twenty dollar bill had spit itself back out. WOW! But the woman was nowhere to be found. And so since I was on the phone with the very nice gentleman who is sending me my refund of three dollars, I said – what should I do with this bill? So I decided to slip the twenty dollar bill in the back of a picture on top of the change machine and that way it was secure and hidden, but known… it was a picture of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is actually my favorite artwork of Mary. I texted a photo to the laundromat attendant, and he said he would tell the lady.

Okay, I packed up my stuff and I skipped that laundromat… (I went to a different one and yes today got all that washed!)… 

So then I get a phone call, and the laundromat gentleman says the lady can’t find the money. And both of us speculate that it would be so awful if the guy watching us had taken it… so the laundromat man was going to check the video camera. And isn’t that a funny thing we get upset about being videoed normally. But in a situation like this, we were happy there’s a video camera… same with those people who like their dash cams, but I digress…

Well, back to that twenty dollar bill… the laundromat person texted me back to say the lady went but she was short, and she never took the photo down. He said he would check it out later that afternoon. Yes, he found the twenty, tucked still into Mary’s keeping. He will send that lady a check. And I was grateful that we didn’t have to suspect the third person… all is good… good!

Perhaps we should remember that no matter whether there are video cameras, or not, that there’s no bigger Entity in this world watching us ALL THE TIME than God Himself. And for whatever happens to us, whether we feel picked on or in a rut, He GOD picks us up. If we ourselves are not the goodie 2 shoes citizens we should aspire to be, and we ask for forgiveness, admit we are sinners, well, He will also pick us up. So regardless of being picked on, remember we are PICKED UP!

I appreciate Mother Mary in her willingness to be the Lord’s handmaid and serving, by accepting being chosen (not just she carried that 20, LOL). I appreciate that the Lord chose her, and that the Lord chooses us for random tasks and sacred ones.

One more thing about feeling like we’re picked on, well, seriously we need to stop our grumbling… I need to stop my grumbling, and we collectively and personally need to take a bigger picture attitude in this broken world. We need to frame and reframe things that look and appear like tests, and change them into testimonies of trust. 

God is watching everything. 

Including those twenty dollar bills…

Keep grinning and bearing it!

Amen