A few weeks ago I celebrated 15 years of being a butcher. In that timespan I have worked in three different shops. Starting out just wrapping meat to now doing everything start to finish. I owe all of that to Richard Rumsey. He took a 17-year-old kid and put a knife in his hand and said, “Meat can’t cut itself!” We would talk every day after I left Kroger, from the most ridiculous of things to music, which was mainly what we talked about, and also the things that matter! He quickly became my other dad, which earned him the name “Pop.”
Then one day last year I got a phone call from his ex-wife during church that he had passed away. I lost it outside the church. A wave of emotions fell over me! I thought, “I wish could have just talked to him one more time or something!” Once I gathered myself, I got in the truck and turned on the radio and Jim Croce was playing. The song was “Tomorrows Gonna Be a Brighter Day.”
I guess that’s true for all of us even in the darkest of times where it may seem like we can’t go on. Tomorrow is always gonna be a brighter day if we have Christ at the forefront of our lives! I know that Rumsey was a believer in Christ and one day I’ll see him again and it will be just like old times, but until that time I’ll just keep waiting and carrying on the tradition and art of being a butcher. After all “meat can’t cut itself!”
Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice. -Proverbs 27:9, NIV