I don’t know if you are like me, but I have a hard time with wobbly wheels on store carts. I am trying to be nice, but to tell the truth, I dislike with a passion carts with wobbly wheels!

It is so annoying. So distracting. It’s usually just one wheel, right? It wobbles and vibrates the cart, or it pulls to one side as it wobbles. 

You yank it backward, then push it forward, just to see if it frees up the wheel. If that doesn’t help, you step aside and check out the wheel as if you can perform high-tech cart maintenance on the spot.

That wobbly wheel no doubt has a yard of filthy string, hair, and debris wrapped around the wheel and dragging. Yuck.

That wobbly cart takes more effort to push, and then it starts to screech and/or thump loudly. 

I just want to blow it up in the center aisle. Oh, am I being too theatrical? 

I had one of these wobbly carts the other day at Walmart. Shopping at Walmart is painful enough without having to select an unknown-to-me wobbly cart. I push it to the sanitation station, and I push off with my cart. I cringe. No! A wobbly wheel cart, I groan. I roll my eyes, BUT I push on. 

I don’t know why because usually I whip that baby around and put it back, but not today. Lazy? I don’t know. 

I am a speedy shopper. Zippy shopper. I wince at shoppers standing beside their cart in the center of the aisle and gazing at the shelves like they’re watching The Sound of Music. I’m upsetting myself just thinking about it. Ha.

It’s hard to have concentration or speed with a wobbly cart. Why do we let ourselves be content with things that don’t make us happy or bear good fruit?

I ran into this fellow that I know the other day in the re-use store. I was looking for cabinet doorknobs. We greet and converse about home improvements. The conversation kind of runs into a ditch as he explains as a building contractor that he really dislikes what he is doing. 

“Why, I have to have all these different tools in my truck to make this and that repair!”

Oh, methinks, but that IS your job.

He went on to say that he just turned 60 and couldn’t wait to retire. 

Whoa, that’s five years of misery, folks. That’s hanging on to a wobbly-wheel cart for five long years!

We all have our own wobbly wheels, but we do have a choice. We can push hard and thump, or we can whip that baby around and get something different.

Many moons ago, I was a nursing assistant in a nursing home. I enjoyed the residents, but not the hard labor. It’s back-breaking!

I would watch the TMAs, aka Trained Medication Aides, passing their pills as I hoisted Bertha in bed.

That looks easier, I thought, than what I am doing, and I decided to enroll in a TMA class. 

I became a TMA—passing pills, doing tube feeding, wound care, and a lot of other stuff I saw the licensed nurses doing. I also noticed my pay was far less than theirs. 

I decided to return that wobbly cart for a new one and enrolled in nursing school to become an LPN.

I was 42 years old! 

My first day at school was a zinger! Off at 5:30 in the morning in an old beater of a car. A classroom full of newly graduated high school seniors. Instructors like drill sergeants. 

I was one of four non-traditional students, and we all sat in the front row wide-eyed.

Every weekday was repeated as the day before. Off at 5:30 a.m. Back home in the evening to make spaghetti, study, and sleep. 

Every other weekend, I pushed that TMA cart. I determined in my heart I wasn’t going to push a wobbly chart anymore.

Before I started nursing school, I prayed to just be able to apply. Then I prayed for God’s help to pass the test of the day. If I pass it, I’ll take the next one.

Selecting a new cart is just half the journey. You have got to push that cart through the whole store. You have to finish your course.

I pushed that LPN cart for 20 years and kissed it goodbye. 

Wobbly carts are everywhere, and from time to time, by no fault of your own, you grab one. But it doesn’t mean you are stuck with it. 

God has given you all wisdom and all power over wobbly carts in your life. So my friend, grab onto a new and better handle of life. If God be for you, who can be against you?

Pushing with Jesus!

Susan

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