Touched

Life is worth living, and you never know when a little thing will come along that will change your life.

Or a little thing that you do might change the life of someone else. No one is alone.

We're all connected.”

 ~~Monica, Monica's Bad Day

 touched by an Angel tv series

It was Sunday and I was having a bad day.

I may have got up on the wrong side of the bed or had the wrong hormonal mix or maybe just not enough coffee.

I was working at an inner city church and on Sunday Morning

church members gathered and prepared bagged lunches and soup and coffee

and went to a local hotel parking lot in the middle of down town

and they came.  People of all sizes, shapes and colors, came to pick up a free lunch as there was no other feeding program available for the homeless and hungry in our city on Sunday mornings.  This happened to be my Sunday to participate.  It was freezing cold outside, so I dressed warmly.  Church members had already assembled the 200 or so bagged lunches, cooked up heaping hot pots of soup and coffee.  The lemonade was prepared with love and the "angel brownie" had arrived--a member who baked delicious looking homemade brownies each week filled with all kinds of surprises and wrapped individually--these were always a hit and knowing the member---well I'm sure they were baked with her heart.

Long story short, the church van was loaded and a couple of men and I headed out in the freezing elements.

As soon as we pulled up, they came and without hesitation, and began to set up the tables, carry the coolers and help get us ready for the food line. 

I was still in a bad mood this morning....but as the cold set in my bones, I began to watch these people file through the line.  Calloused and dirty hands of people dressed in layers of clothes to keep them warm.  Some of them with shaking hands, not enough alcohol in their system or missing the medication they cannot afford--tiny tremors unnoticed by many.  I walked among the men and women--- Their faces revealed the hardness of their life, some of their clothes were dirty and torn but yet there they sat and stood, laughing and talking and eating.

A gathered community and in the midst of it all, I stood in my bad mood and wondered where in the heck God was in the midst of folks with so little.....and as quick as my bad mood said it...

There he came.....a tall black man with very gentle eyes---eyes filled with lots of life experience and pain, but yet---his eyes twinkled as he spoke to me---twinkled with some kind of joy that bubbled from somewhere deep.

I named him David.  I don't know what his real name was but for just a moment on that Sunday.....I had a visit with an angel of sort.

We started off chatting about the weather and before I knew it...

David took off in a litany of all he had to be thankful for----warm coffee, sandwiches for later, the wonderful brownies----and for just being alive.  He smiled and said, "Do you ever read the Bible?"

I laughed and said, "sometimes".   He said..."Did you ever read them Psalms?  Oh my they lift my spirit......I have so much to be thankful for....God has blessed me....God is good....all the time God is good."  and as quickly as we shared our conversation, David left me.

I never saw this gentle thankful man again but I have never forgotten the the way this man touched my heart in such a powerful way.

I have never forgotten his toothless smile, his twinkling eyes,or his blue skull cap.   Sometimes, when I have another of my bad moods, he comes to visit me in my memories and once again

helps me start to count my blessings instead of my miseries.

I have been blessed

because

I've been touched

by

an

Angel named David

and

my life and my world has been all the better for it...

For I am blessed....blessed all the time....

and

the Mystery..

the Mystery continues to surprise me.

Watch today and see if perhaps

someone like David doesn't come along and shift your world.

just watch.