Yesterday my roommate and I went to see The Voice, our favorite show and the only show I have been following on Hulu this past semester. So basically, from the get go it was a great day. We spent all day on our feet, cheering, screaming, losing our voices, and naturally, at the end of it all, all we wanted to do was eat. We went to a nearby restaurant, it was pretty empty, considering it was 9:30 and no one eats dinner that late.
It shouldn't have surprised us, because God had literally given us favor and showered us with surprise blessings all day, but He did it yet again in giving us a wonderful waiter. Like, I'm talking the kind that makes you want to eat slower because he was so down to Earth and caring. He was a middle aged man with huge dreads going all the way down to his knees... rad and one-of-a-kind to say the least. He was the kindest, friendliest stranger I had interacted with in a very long time.
The First Lesson:
At one point in the meal my roommate questioned 'I wonder how long it took him to grow out his hair?' My natural reaction was 'that cannot be all his hair... there is no way, it must be extensions or something.' So she proceeded to ask him about it... he said he has been growing his hair for twenty years. TWENTY YEARS. I have only been alive for twenty years, there is no way I could grow my hair that long without cutting it. It blew my mind. He then told us how he thinks for the new year he is going to chop it all off. I laughed and said that I would never chop off all my hair, and how much hair he had put mine to shame.
He said how his hair had been through a lot (metaphorically speaking)... a lot of junk in his life had been caught up in that hair and at this point, he wanted to just get rid of it all and start fresh. I sat there in awe and my head was running though how brilliant of a metaphor that is for so many things in life. How often does our junk and worry and questions and sins just keep piling up on themselves before we ever think to just let go of it all? How often would we rather bask in the comfort of not getting rid of the things we are so accustomed to, instead of step out of our comfort zone and change things? How often do these things that we don't want in our life, the things that pull us down instead of free us, how often do those things pile up on us without us ever realizing it... with the result of being weighed down with 'twenty years worth of dreads'?
I don't know about you, but in twenty years I don't want to be wishing I let go of things that I just always held on to out of comfort and familiarity. Change and letting go is good when change and letting go means freedom and lifted burdens.
The Second Lesson:
Before we ate our meal, we said a quick prayer. Usually I do it in my head or if we do choose to pray in public, it typically means a quick prayer as to not make others uncomfortable or draw attention. However, when we prayed quickly for our meal, our waiter came up, lightly touched our shoulders and listened to our prayer with respect, as to pray along with us. After, my roommate and I were blown away. Here's the thing, out of the million times I have prayed in public, no waiter has ever done that. I mean, the chances of our waiter being a Christian are possible, but to be honest, if he wasn't a Christian it was all the more powerful. I think the beauty in him meeting us where we were at, respecting our beliefs, and caring enough to in a sense, view things through our lenses, was so incredibly powerful.
I questioned how often myself, and the entire church perhaps, allows ourselves to be in other people's shoes. We allow ourselves to be in other Christians shoes all the time, but how about people of other faiths or that don't have a faith in God at all? We don't allow ourselves to meet those people where they are at. We fight for words, for persuasion, to convince, to make our beliefs known, instead of just put our hands on their shoulders and love them where they are at.
Woah.
The Third Lesson:
We asked for our check and our waiter proceeded to ask if we wanted dessert... and that it would be on him. I mean, whens the last time I had a waiter pay for my best friend and I to have dessert? Um, how about never. So we ate the most bomb brownie and ice cream dessert and felt so blessed by someone else's generosity. My heart after that night felt so blown away and so blessed by that gesture of kindness, I don't think that reaching out and loving others means anything crazy extravagant, this brownie dessert sure did well and it made me question, like, what if I chose to intentionally bless strangers day-to-day in the little things, not always in the crazy big things? A random encouragement on a post-it note or a Starbucks being payed for. How much would the world be blessed and changed if we just began this chain of loving people when we have no idea where they are at in life. Eventually, we will hit loving on people that needed that love every little bit. We will eventually hit the people that didn't just smile, they wept because they realized they are loved and valued in this world.
I think that the quote 'he/she didn't have to do this' is so powerful, and should be what people say about Christians all the time. We don't have to do this or that, or go above and beyond to love people, but as Christians we should.
I saw beauty and power in loving strangers, we are called to love our neighbors and those that are near to us in life, but what about everyone else?
