Grace

Today I walked downtown to meet a friend for coffee.

Along the way I saw business men and women, transients, and prostitutes. I saw loitering drop outs and I saw law making politicians.

Want to know something funny?

The transients, prostitutes and drop outs were the ones more inclined to return my greetings and my smiles.

Here's a case in point.

I was early for my meeting and when I arrived at the coffee shop there was an older gentleman sitting on a bench in front of the Blue Pepper. He looked a little raggedy, but his face was bright and when I walked by he smiled and said, "Young lady, God's shining in the sun and whispering in the breeze today!"

"Really?" I replied, "How about I get us both a cup of coffee and you tell me all about it?"

"Why I'd like that." he answered.

We didn't visit for long, but by the time we had finished our coffee, I knew that God really was shining in the sun because I had felt His sacred presence warming our faces. I knew too that God really was whispering in the breeze. I knew because I don't ordinarily make a habit of buying coffee for strange men I've never met and I'm fairly certain that I would only have done so in response to some sacred whisper from the Almighty.

Oh, scoff if you will, but something really wonderful happened during our brief encounter. You see, I learned that God really does meet us in surprising places. What's more, God often speaks to us through the most surprising people.

How do I know?

I know because this morning God met me in front of the Blue Pepper and He spoke to me through an elderly homeless man.

..........such a chance encounter, in such an unlikely place, with such an unlikely soul. (BTW, that "unlikely soul" would be me.)

If God really was whispering in the wind this morning, I'm just glad that I was somehow able to hear Him.

Otherwise I might have missed this simple, inexplicable moment of grace altogether; and that my friends, would have been a profound shame.