I Was So Tired That I Started to Grimace...

I have a close friend who was telling me once about returning from Jackson Hole, Wyoming near the end of a road trip. He was the only one awake in the car, and he was driving. Somewhere out in the middle of America, in the middle of the night, he had an encounter. He told me that as he topped a hill and began the descent, his headlights fell upon a 30-foot tall Grimace. The resulting conversation went something like this:
“You mean the big, purple, gumdrop-shaped guy on the kid’s McDonald’s commercials?”
“Yes.”
“So there was a McDonald’s nearby?”
“No.”
“What then, was it a statue?”
“No, it was Grimace.”
“I understand that, but what was it?”
“Grimace.”
“I know, you said that already. I’m asking you if it was a tourist attraction or something like—”
“No, it was Grimace…a live Grimace.”
(I didn’t know how to break the news to him that Grimace was not a living entity, not even in the Great Plains. I tried to be understanding.)
“You know that Grimace isn’t real, right?”
“Of course I do.”
“Look, I’m a little confused.”
“I was so tired, I was seeing things. Not only did I see Grimace standing on the side of the road, but there were a number of little baby Grimaces standing on the other side, waiting for me to pass by so they could safely cross. That’s what I saw, but nothing was really there. Later, when I thought about it, I realized just how exhausted I really was, what with seeing Grimace and so forth…”

We all have moments like that; we see things that aren’t even there. I’m not talking about seeing an exhaustion-created hallucination from a fast-food chain, but those times when we see an attitude, or intent, or a problem where none exist. Not only do we often “read into” things and see the non-existent, sometimes we do the opposite: we miss what is really there. Winston Churchill said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”

We too often miss the reality of the moment. For me, the saddest and most sobering moments come when I get so involved with something, whether good or bad, and, in the busyness of it all, I miss God. David told his son Solomon in II Chron. 28:9, “If you seek Him, He will be found by you…” When I reach those moments when I’ve missed Him, then I have really missed the point of everything.

Dustin C. George
Minister to Single Adults
www.sevierheights.org/ministries/singles