When I was younger, I would guess between nine and eleven, Dr. Pepper had the Twist-A-Pepper game. One in six bottle lids was an instant winner – another free bottle of Dr. Pepper. My cousin recently reminded me of this and of a story I had forgotten.
We were walking around town and I found a Dr. Pepper lid. It was a winner. Someone had just thrown it away and since I walked with my head down I stumbled upon it. So I took it to the store and received my free Dr. Pepper. And I won another Dr. Pepper. My cousin says I got five free Dr. Peppers in a row. That may be an exaggeration. I do remember at least three, possibly four but not five. This does not mean it wasn’t five but that I just do not recall.
I cannot really drink dark soda any more. I do drink them from time to time but if I do not chase it with a lot of water my body will be very mean to me. Oh listening to my body is a fun game to play too but I do not want to get too crazy on you right now.
Another game I used to play was the average amount of money I would find on the ground each year. I keep very good records of how much I found each day and I did this for many years. One year I found a $20 and my average was skewed but it was all very interesting. I probably would have had a better average if I had got out more. You know how you find money on the ground? You look down instead of out.
As I mentioned a few weeks back, I recently started purging things from my life. While doing this I found a spreadsheet of my 1997 Ford Ranger. I kept a log file of all the information each time I filled up with gas. This was a fun game. I also had a spreadsheet of the kilowatts used in my home and sometimes compared that in my mind with what we used at the office. Now I just track dollar amounts but in my head because the finance program I use keeps up with that for me. I can create a graph and see the spike in spending over the summer in just a few minutes time. These are games where you look down as well but instead of looking down at the ground you look down at paper.
Stories of looking down. I knew what my shoes looked like and not people. People were never particularly nice. That is not to say they were necessarily mean to me but they did not fit in my world. Not many people have ever fit into my world. It is extremely lonely most of the time. And life is pretty boring so I fill it up with things. I count things like M&Ms because numbers are fun. I write because words are fun too.
After God saved me I noticed that I forgot what my shoes looked like. It was a very odd thing to me. There are all these people walking around me. Many of them lost with no idea about God and His saving grace. Now I want to look down for a different reason. I want to look down because seeing these people hurts. There is nothing I can do for them. I pray desperately for the lost but they just keep walking around me. I keep seeing their faces and feeling their pain. This too is a world that not many people venture into. Every place I go seems to be filled with loneliness.