Monday, April 27, 2009

Give Me a Heart for People

Today I am a single mother with a single child. No, we had no tragedy--actually, quite the opposite. Brendon is now big enough to enjoy his first "rite of passage" and join his dad on an intensely exciting business trip to exotic Indianapolis. It's amazing how even the Honda Accord they rented is the coolest car EVER!...but I digress...

Given my suddenly light position in life for these two days, I decided my youngest and I would play after I picked him up from school. We motored to Ikea to play in the children's section and finish up with ice cream cones. While he was navigating one of the many tunnels in the room display section (if you've never been to Ikea, this sentence probably makes no sense and by the way, I feel truly sorry for your sad station in life), he ran across a new friend, Braden. Braden came with his grandpa, who was a brilliantly charming Scottish gentleman, brouge and all. I love Scottish accents. We had a wonderful conversation for several minutes while the boys played with each other. It certainly didn't hurt how much I enjoyed the conversation when he commented on how beautiful (in a normal, non-child predator way) my son is and that he obviously "has a very pleasant disposition." Mothers love to hear those things. After we bade "goodbye" to these new-found friends and slowly enjoyed our ice cream, we headed home to get ready for T-ball practice.

My sons are amazingly good car riders. From day one, they've both loved riding in the car so much and are so quiet I sometimes forget they're even with me. This bit of trivia is pertinent to this story--really, it is. Since he is...well...an amazingly good car rider, I found myself reflecting on the conversation I had at Ikea. The Scottish gentleman was quite obviously "un-churched." At one point during our conversation he used some rather colorful language (colorful enough to still be banned from prime time TV, in case you were wondering), thrown out in a quite tasteful way. That's what caught me. I didn't instantly bristle in hidden and controlled condemnation. Five or ten years ago, I probably would have thought, "How sad that such a lovely conversation had to be ruined by a bad choice of language, even though he was careful to be quiet enough that the boys didn't overhear." Today I thought, "How sad this gentleman and his family don't live in Natomas so I could get to know them better. They seem just like the kind of people God's been throwing in my life lately." The shift is subtle, but clear to me. While I still don't condone or participate in "questionable" activities, I'm falling more in love with people who do. I'm seeing people who are far from God, feeling the tragedy of that and begging to help be the bridge to bring them to a point where they make an informed decision about whether they want to believe in Jesus or not. Besides, it just makes me laugh when I hear a friend who won't darken the door of a church tell someone else, "If you're going to go to church, pick my friends' church. They put on one hell of an Easter egg hunt!"

1 comment:

  1. It seems like a curse of ministry sometimes that we don't get to get out of the bubble of believers. Not thats a bad thing, but to be around raw humanity sometimes can reopen our eyes. To be in a conversation with a person who has no guard, no front. People just living life. It can be such a breath of fresh air. I love the moments when God reminds us WHO we really are here for. Such a refocusing moment.

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