Sometimes there are people that Holy Spirit places in your life and these people are kindly yet most powerful when they pray. This is an example of one of them. There was a season in my life that I attended World Outreach Church. I would tend to sit on the far-right side of the church maybe a row or two away from where the parents of Pastor Jackson would sit. There was kindness even in the gentle greeting handshake received during the service at times. There was a moment in time when I was working on Sundays as a true marketplace ministry @ Cracker Barrel. While most were attending a church service, I was in the gift store sharing the love of Jesus with the patrons that came to Cracker Barrel. There was anointing for me to do that little job during my life. That little gift shop job started in GA when I was seeking employment and most grateful for any hours I could get to work @ the time. I moved and after settling down a bit even though working another job I still felt compelled to work the gift shop of Cracker Barrel usually I was given the hours from 11:00AM-2:00PM and I would just come to life when I was allowed to pick a few items to sample with the guests. I loved engaging the guests and at times I got great ideas from how the customers may have used those very items in cooking or baking. I would try it sometimes or pass along the suggestions to customers. I have found that when sampling items the guests were more receptive to savory as opposed to sweet candy type of samples. I would get creative when sampling sodas also. I would ask guests if they would like to try a combo of certain flavored sodas and they would.
I loved helping guests pick out items as gifts for their family & friends. It was as if I would come alive is how I can explain it the moment I walked through the doors of Cracker Barrel for my shift. I would say it was the anointing flowing for that very season appointment in my life. I met some of the most special guests as they entered the establishment and would look for certain weekly customers as they came to eat and shop there. My family loved the discount I earned of 35%. Some of those very purchased items are in my home today. The rocker my mother purchased is in my living room. It got pretty weathered from sitting on her patio, so I sanded it and re-varnished it before I moved from my other residence. One thing I could not get smoothly sanded down was where she placed her hands on the 2 handles when she prayed. She had a few Cracker Barrel quilt sets she purchased, and one went to my sister-in-law, and I have the hummingbird one. I need to place that on the bed since it is Summer now and the hummingbirds come to greet me daily. I have other items also but those 2 seem to stand out the most. I know it wasn't standard practicing habits on sample day but for some reason I could get away with selecting at times items from the store and then create excitement within the store via sampling. If there was a new food item that came in the store, I would poll the people working with me that day and then create the samples. Maybe it might have been against standard policy, but I never forgot to share samples with the other employees because I saw the power they had in suggesting items when checking out at the register. There were times when management would allow me to take samples into the kitchen for them to try also. I wonder why they don't resurrect sampling in the gift shop again. I was extremely cautious not only in preparing the samples with following health department guidelines but also carried through with the actually sampling of the items also.
Back to my story about Mrs. Jackson. One day while working at Cracker Barrel, she came into the restaurant. I knew she was getting ready for a trip to Israel, and I asked her if she would take my name to the wailing wall with her and I wrote it down on a piece of paper and she took it with her. Well, a few years later is when I found out through DNA testing that within my family bloodline, I am a small percentage of Jewish heritage from Eastern Europe. Sure enough, when looking at a family tree my great, great grandmother from my maternal side of the family is there. So many Eastern European names in my family three and low and behold this Jewish name sits there. It was a little bit later and I was @ a service @ World Outreach, and I was speaking with Pastor Jackson, and I shared that brief testimony with him, and I asked him to please share that with his mother and thank her for me and he told me he would.
I worked for Cracker Barrel for 7 years and then resigned. I worked for them when you actually had to earn your gradual 4 stars on the apron and earn the 35% discount. It was changing as I was leaving. All the time we invested in having to earn the 4 stars was now reduced to if you work for them for 30 days you now get the 35% discount. Not sure if that is still in place now. The deciding factor for time to resign was when my direct supervisor did not even acknowledge my 7-year anniversary with the company, so I figured 7 is the number of completion and that is what I did. I still patronize Cracker Barrel today and recently purchased a Lauren Daigle music CD from them. The song that truly speaks to my heart from that CD is, "To Know Me." How appropriate to share this song with you all today as a tribute to Mrs. Jackson. may you be blessed with hearing this song. Thank you, Cracker Barrel, for still selling Christain artist music CDs in the store. Oh, and if you know me @ all, you will know I would bake and bring it in with me for my co-workers to enjoy that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment