Thursday, March 22, 2012

God with us?

She had beautiful eyes, as blue as the sky on a perfectly clear winter day.  I bet her husband swooned over them many a time.  Her hair had just a trace of blond left among the yellow.  Her skin was incredibly dented, wrinkled, worn.  She was frustrated, feisty, tired out, 80-something years old.

She was looking for the free tax preparation, which this April happens is apparently housed on the 5th floor of the science building at the university where I teach.  After she interrupted the class across the hall, she found me in office hours and started looking for tax help.  Yesterday, during my one hour a week of solitude, it was not a very welcome interruption.

I happened to have a few quiet minutes with no students around.  Something in me clicked, and paused.  It was surreal.  Supernatural?  I listened, and noticed.  Her eyes, her skin, her labored breathing, her complaints about doctors and blood pressure medicine and coughs.  And I found myself wondering, what if this very woman was the Jesus I believe in?  Jesus on the Chemistry floor during my office hours.  Would I think her more beautiful, more important, worth taking time to listen to, talk to, and would I leave a chair out for her?  For a few minutes, she became a glimpse of my humble God, and  I stopped to make time for her.

What if I had that thought 5 minutes earlier?  Would that book salesman I just talked to seem more of a valuable person than a salesman to be annoyed with?

Driving across town on my way home then, walking around the elementary school, greeting moms and grandmas, scooping up my own dirty-faced little boys.  I glimpsed people in a way that I never have before.  Not with long hair, or strange clothes, or worn, or small, or beautiful, but each the tiniest facet in a crazy glimpse of an unfathomable God.  

4 comments:

Don said...

"in that you've done it to the least of these... you've done it to Me."

Good post. Made me think of this song: http://www.youclubvideo.com/video/180639/joan-osborne-one-of-us

I had never seen the video that went with it. Now I have.

Jan said...

This is beautiful, Joanna. :-) Made me think of another aspect of this in which a young student (20 years)came to our office for whatever he could/should have been doing for himself, as most do. I came up to the front to assist "another one" and as I looked at him, immediately the thought entered my mind: "What if this was your son? How would you want him to be treated?" Changed my attitude immediately. :-)

hotels in pachmarhi said...

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optimum said...

Yes God is always with us all the time.