I had to go give blood for tests as part of my annual health check-up. I went to Quest Diagnostics off of Governors Drive. I went in, signed my name at the window and went and sat down in the waiting room. It had a large glass window facing the street, and there where about 15 people in the waiting room. I was there about 5 minutes when outside the window, a woman who was apparently homeless pushing a shopping cart of stuff walked up to the window. She was dressed in sweat pants, two jackets, and winter hat. She parked her cart in front and came in the door. Everyone’s eyes in the lobby was looking at her. She walked to the check-in window, signed in and handed the nurse some kind of Medicaid form. She then turned around looking across the waiting room area for a seat to sit in. Every ones eyes in the waiting room dropped or turned away from her, hoping that she would not sit next to them. As fate would have it she walked and sat down next to me.
It was apparent to me and others, by the strong smell of body odor that was filling the air around us she had not bathed in quite awhile. Frowns and wide-eyed looks were given to each other of those in the room. After the lady sat down next to me on my right, she bent over and started digging through a large beach-bag type bag she brought in with her filled with all sorts of items. She finally pulled something out and when I looked over at her I was surprised to notice it was a Bible. I looked over and saw she had opened it to 1 John chapter 4. Her eyes caught mine looking at the Bible and she asked me if I read the Bible. I said yes mam I do, and that I love 1 John. She said God has been convicting me that I am not loving others like I should. That I am becoming judgmental of others and their appearances and I need to repent and love others more freely. Knowing in my heart that I had just judged her by her appearance and smell, I said mam, thank you so much for sharing that with me. It is a sermon myself and everyone in the waiting room needs to hear. She asked me to pray for her to love others more freely, when just then my name was called by the receptionist, as I got up I told her we could talk and pray more when I got out, and went through the door into the other offices.
I was only in the room for the few minutes it took the nurse to draw a few vials of blood. When I went back out into the waiting room to leave I looked to where the woman and I had been sitting, however she was not there, nor anywhere in the room. So I thought she had got called back to see a nurse as well. However, when I walked toward the exit door I saw that her shopping cart she had parked in front was also gone. I walked outside and looked around the parking lot and she was no where to be found. I turned and looked one more time through the window into the waiting room and still did not see her. So a little puzzled by this, I walked to my car and driving off looked for her again, but did not see her.
I believe I encountered Christ that morning, and he smelled and looked like nothing I expected or preferred him to look like. I think he wanted to remind me of that. But then again, I have found he never does. We pray at times for Jesus to let us know he is real, that he knows us and to reveal himself to us. If He does encounter you and sits down next to you, it most likely will not be in a way we envisioned.
“Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we reside in God and he in us: in that he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world…If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in If anyone says “I love God” and yet hates his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And the commandment we have from him is this: that the one who loves God should love his fellow Christian too.” (1 John 4:15-16, 21-22)
My family, I pray Jesus encounters you today in a way that stretches your image of him and opens your eyes and hearts and releases you to love Him and others more freely, in Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
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