A Dusty, Musty, Velvet-Elvis Flea Market (Revisited)

Here’s another lightly edited post from the archives as requested by long-time reader, Katrina.     (Written in 2010.)

Steve and I were paying bills one night when we came across an unexpectedly large bill. We managed to get it paid, in addition to writing our monthly gift to the church but it was a stretch.

I must confess that as I began to write that church check I thought, “I know what the Bible says about giving. I know what I’ve practiced all my life. However, it would sure be nice to take that money and put it on that bill.”

We didn’t. But I was tempted.

When I headed out to the grocery store the following day… 

I didn’t have much extra to spend. I shopped very carefully with my main splurges being some extra fruit and a box of Little Debbie Snack Cakes.

After arriving home, I heard that two families in our church needed a meal due to some medical challenges and I volunteered to help.  Providing those meals though, turned out to be an enlightening experience for me because as I started packing up my homemade chicken pot pie and deciding which side dishes to send along, I felt a shaft of selfishness shoot through my soul.

I knew it would be nice for the families to have a dessert to go with their meals but the only dessert I had in the house were my newly purchased (and highly treasured) Little Debbie cakes.

And I knew that fresh fruit is always a great addition to any meal but I also knew how much Sarah loved those green grapes I had just bought. Did I really want to send out the door the groceries I had just selected and purchased with such frugality? Did I really want to give away my Little Debbie Snack Cakes? The chocolate ones?

I mean, really?

I stood in the middle of my kitchen floor and duked it out with myself over cakes and grapes. Do I send the extras along, or do I keep them for my own family? Should I be selfish or not selfish? Should I give or should I keep?

I finally got kind of bored with arguing with myself (it’s much more scintillating to argue with someone else) and said, “Okay. I will give this stuff away and I will be happy about it and I will believe that as we are faithful to be generous with what we have, then God will be faithful to supply our needs.”

And so out the door (in the hands of Steve, the Meal Delivery Guy) went my longed-for snack cakes and grapes, along with the chicken I had been reserving for our own supper. When Steve returned from his delivery run, I had made a quick tuna casserole and the three of us ate a contented, albeit chicken-less, meal together. And that was that!

Now we move along… 

to the subject of junior bridesmaid dresses. (Don’t worry–it’s all going to tie together.)

Two weeks from now, Sarah will take part in an Honor Stars Crowning Ceremony, which is the culmination of a great deal of work done in conjunction with her girls’ group at church. Each girl is supposed to have a white dress for this ceremony and I had started stressing out because I wanted Sarah to have something lovely but knew I couldn’t just go into Jewel’s Formal Wear downtown and spend $100 on one of their dresses.

I was still worrying over the dress situation when Steve and I, in our ongoing quest to find a gently used couch for his church office, decided to drive to a large flea market on the older side of town where we had heard they carried used furniture. I told Steve, “Well, we probably won’t find anything there, but let’s drive out just for the fun of it.”

We had only been in the flea market for five minutes when I glanced up and saw a truly wondrous sight: a white, junior bridesmaid dress.

Now to fully understand the significance of that discovery, you have to remember that I was standing in the middle of a hugely uninspiring flea market.  Every crevice and cranny of the building was filled with varieties of junk, knick-knacks, cast-offs, and even some velvet photos of Elvis.

Some of it was wonderfully interesting and some of it was beyond ugly.  The bottom line, however, was that it was not a place where Lovely White Dress Sightings happened very often.

As soon as I glimpsed the dress, I screeched to a halt, veered off my course, and charged across the aisle, leaving my bewildered husband wandering in my wake. I wanted to take a closer look at the dress to make sure it wasn’t just an apparition that my overwrought imagination had conjured up.

I looked at the size. It was Sarah’s size. I looked at the price. It was only $15!

I sternly laid aside the temptation to do a happy jig in the middle of the aisle and merely asked the man behind the counter if he would hold the dress till the next day.

Later that afternoon . . .

I told Sarah I had found a dress possibility and described it to her. She replied, “It sounds pretty. What store is it at?”

I said, “Well–long pause–it’s at a flea market.”

Sarah had never even heard of a flea market.  She said, “Mom, you’re wanting to buy my special white dress for my crowning ceremony at a place called a flea market?”

But Sarah is a chip off the old block and is open-minded in her shopping philosophies. As long as she finally understood that the dress from the flea market was not going to actually have fleas, she was willing to go take a look.

Saturday morning as we pulled up to the weathered warehouse, I had a moment’s misgiving. I looked at the place through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl who is becoming aware of fashion and style and I thought, “Oh dear. She is going to think this is the worst place ever and she is going to be utterly appalled about the fact that her mom is even thinking about buying her special dress in a place that sells rusty tools, junky miscellany, and velvet pictures of Elvis.”

But to her credit, she flung her little purse across her shoulder, beamed at me brightly, and happily accompanied me through the doors, commenting on how interesting everything was and quickly laying to rest my fears that she had become too hoity-toity for such a place.

She liked the dress! She tried it on. It fit!

I almost felt like crying as I saw her sweet little eyes overlook all the strangeness of our shopping environment and she cheerily said, “Yes, I think it’s a good idea to buy this dress. It will save you and daddy some money and I like it a lot.”

Now the best part was yet to come.

As we were getting ready to pay, the vendor’s wife said, “I thought you might like to know that this dress was worn just one time and the people bought it from Jewel’s Formal Wear downtown; they got it on sale for $75.”

Jewel’s! The very store I couldn’t afford to shop in.

I stood there for a moment in amazed, quiet thankfulness as I was reminded that God had seen my challenges throughout the week–my struggles with writing the check and my struggles with giving away the food. (Especially the chocolate.)

The coincidence of finding a dress like that in a place like a dusty flea market was not lost on me. What were the chances of it being the right color, the right size, the right style, and coming from the very store I had wanted to shop in?

The joy on Sarah’s face at finding such a lovely bargain made me smile as I completed the transaction, being extra careful to keep the exquisite, white frock from coming into contact with the dirty wrenches and rusty pliers flung across the table near the cash register.

The final poignant moment came . . .

when the vendor started rummaging around trying to find a clean bag amidst all of the grimy stuff he had for sale. He finally emerged triumphantly from under the cluttered counter with a shopping bag from Nordstrom in his hands. I almost laughed out loud.

To have our lovely dress from Jewel’s packaged in a Nordstrom bag and handed to us over the display of well-worn screwdrivers–well, it just seemed precious, funny, and surreal, all the same time.

I was reminded that God sees our hearts–He sees when we give to others and He sees our hearts when we yearn for something special for someone we love.

And I was especially reminded that His fingerprints don’t just show up in flower-filled fields, glorious sunsets, and stained glass churches.  The fingerprints of His care and provision are seen everywhere—even in a  dusty, musty, velvet Elvis Flea Market

What about you? Have you ever found something unexpectedly wonderful?

Have you ever struggled with giving unselfishly?

Do you have flea markets in your area?

Is there a favorite vintage post you would like me feature down the road?