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…his hands were bigger than mine wrapped around the steering wheel making the car shake just because it embarrassed me he had the cheekiest smile always avoided returning it don’t like to give too much away but the butterflies in my stomach made me do it meanwhile it’s pretty warm here but the people seem nice don’t know that it’s normal to think about you this much but they take flight again because your hands were bigger than mine…
The most wonderful thing just happened.
An older man walked past me over an hour ago.
Seeing me with my head burried in books he commented as he went by that it was a nice place to work (the esplanade near my parent’s place is dotted with picnic tables- I was sitting at one facing the ocean). I looked up, smiled at him, and agreed.
He passed me again on his way back. This time, seeing me looking out at the water and day dreaming, he stopped to talk to me.
“It’s easy to get caught up dreaming here, isn’t it?” Said he to me. I smiled in agreement and took out my headphones. He walked up to the table, inquiring if it were a dictionary I were reading.
No, no. My bible. So it’s okay for me to dream a little- I added with a chuckle. He admitted he’d never read it. I encouraged him to- given how much I’d been getting out of it in the hour I’d been sitting there.
Somehow this lead us into a half hour conversation about Australian politics. I liked the way he spoke- I guess you’d say it was measured and intelligent. I let him speak. He came to the end of his exploring politics, thought for a minute, and concluded that he’d ‘better finish with something ‘religious’ before he left me to it’.
I told him that wasn’t necessary.
I guess I should read it (he said)- the people I know who have all tell me it’s worth doing.
I grinned and added myself to that bunch.
Any particular translation I should look for?
Na, my only advice is that you start half way- at the New Testament- you’ll only understand the first half when you’ve read the second.
Alright then.
He then told me about an academic friend of his who’d spent some time researching and comparing the texts of the monotheistic religions. Apparently he didn’t have much to say about the bible.
There are a couple of things in it that would have gutted me had I not been able to seek God for their real (contextual and eternal) meaning… I nodded and told him I believed that if you seek the truth, you’ll find it.
Well, I’ve always considered myself a truth-seeker.
I believe that.
I stood up and shook his hand before he went away.
—
The thing is, there’s this scripture in which Jesus heals 10 lepars.
But he doesn’t do it immediately- he just instructs them to go to the priest (it was customary to be inspected and declared ‘clean’). They started off on their way, and as they went they were healed.
When I read it, it really stuck out to me. Because I’m not totally healed yet, I’m on my way. And sometimes I feel like I can’t step out too much for my weaknesses. So I was wrestling with God about this point the very morning the man came and spoke to me. Surely I should stay behind the fringes for a while (that mission trip is beyond me, this ministry opportunity needs someone raised in the church).
The tension between wanting to adequately represent a God who is perfection and love from within the utterly defective shell of a woman.
When is anyone good enough to serve God?
After the man left the scripture popped into my head again. And I realised that this lepar had been used by God. As I was on my way.
’twas awesome.
