Just a Simple Question
Published Feb 17, 2026
By: Amanda Popp
I am a big fan of the self-checkout. I don’t need a W-9 for my efforts; I just
want to bag my own groceries.
Oftentimes I am heading to the store alone just to get some quality podcast
streaming through my hearing aids while I get the shopping done. As a
momma to seven kids, my social battery can often be in the “red.” Here it is
straight: I want to shop, scan my stuff, bag it appropriately, and find out if
they caught the person who committed the true crime I’m currently listening
to.
But there was that one time the self-checkout had a line. I needed to pivot. I
headed to the express lane with no line and a cashier waiting for someone.
Waiting for me, I suppose.
I pushed up the cart with my “express lane appropriate” number of items. I
thought I could be a helpful, and maybe even a functional, member of society, so I lifted and turned the 48-pound bag of dog food for her so she
could easily scan the barcode. She finished scanning the other three items,
and as I waited for the card reader to ask for my PIN, she looked at me and
asked a super simple question:
“What’s the name of your dog?”
I stared at her. I stared and wondered how on earth this random woman knew
I even had a dog. She wasn’t a neighbor. I wasn’t wearing a shirt that proudly
proclaims I own a large black lab. I spent a solid five seconds judging her for
being so randomly nosy.
“My dog?” I finally managed to say.
She pointed to the 48-pound bag of dog food I had literally touched moments
before and asked again, “What’s the name of your dog?”
I looked into the cart. I remembered that I had, in fact, just purchased an
amount of dog food that would suggest the existence of a dog. I took back every ridiculous thing I had just thought about her and said, “Ohhh. His name
is Otis.”
Reason a million and four why I prefer self-checkout.
The truth is, my brain is just full. When you have seven kids ranging from A
to G, your internal monologue isn’t always a peaceful stream; it’s a Green
Bay Packers Lambeau Field stadium of people all yelling different things at
once. Even when I’m alone in the express lane, the “Soundtrack of the Popp
House” is still playing on a loop in my head.
It’s the sound of: “Mom? Do you know where my hairbrush is?” The sound of
a heavy thump from upstairs followed by a loud, “I’m okay!” The sound of
the pencil sharpener and the dryer singing to me that it’s done.
Living life as a big family means living in the noise. There are days I can feel
like I’m drowning in it—where the sole focus is just “getting through the
express lane” and I completely forget I’m pushing a 48-pound bag of God’s
provision in the cart right in front of me.How often do I do this with God?
I stand there with a heavy burden and when God speaks to me or asks me a
simple question, I stare at Him like He just might be the weird one. I wonder
why He feels the need to get all up in my business or how He could even
begin to understand how I am struggling. I forget that He’s the one in control
of the “dog food” in the first place.
I get so caught up in the chaos of my life and my head that I miss the obvious
reality of His real presence standing directly in front of my face.
Sometimes, God has to point to the thing we are literally standing with or
holding onto and ask us a simple (yet often important) question just to snap
us back to the realness of Him.
I don’t think He minds our “Mom-brain” at all, He gives us His
understanding through it. He doesn’t mind that sometimes we get a little
distracted or that we’ve forgotten the name of the dog for a second. He’s just
there. Standing with us in the express lane of our lives, waiting patiently and lovingly for us to realize we aren’t carrying (or pushing) the dog food or any
of this alone.
