God Does Not Shop At Home Depot

Here's how I know: Knocking down the remaining ducks of a house-wide renovation I discovered late yesterday afternoon that in order to get the gas dryer hooked up by the gas company today as scheduled I would need to drive to the Home Depot twenty miles away in Keene, NH in order to buy the needed vent pipe. I try to buy everything possible at our excellent local hardware stores and building suppliers, but they close early and Home Depot doesn't. So, I drive through a cinematic opening-of-the-scary-third-act kind of thunderstorm to Home Depot at nine o'clock last night. In short order, while heading to the check-out with a cart full of dryer parts -- I am not kidding -- the store is struck by lightning.

The lights went out momentarily, the emergency generators came on line and everything returned to the normal routines of selling deeply discounted mass-purchased building supplies at the expense of small town commerce. Any sensible God fearing person would at this point have fled the scene and returned to the grace and charity of local business first thing the next morning. But I'd driven all that way. And it was already in my cart. And their computers rebooted during my moment of doubt. So I bought the damn stuff at Home Depot.

Forgive me Lord. I know not why I do it.
And we can help.