The Greeter

The good news is I recently had another birthday; the bad news is I'm another year older, and looking back I see a long line of birthdays stretching back as far as I can remember. I'm at that stage in life where I realize that my claim to being middle age is not really working anymore; I'm on the cusp of being OLD. I suppose that I'm overly conscious about my age, but if I stand up straight and try to look thin maybe I can get by with middle age a little bit longer. I know another person who is overly conscious about her age, which in her case is putting it mildly. She would like to live forever and seems to be convinced that it'll be possible within her lifetime. She's almost 90, which is pretty good, and actually she's in very good shape; physically active and mentally alert which are both wonderful gifts. I can only hope to grow OLD the way she has.

But I digress, my birthday list was simple this year: I needed a black belt for work, I wanted a set of head phones for my tablet computer, and I needed a shop broom for my garage. I'm not sure what happened to the last one, it just disappeared sometime last summer I think. My wife went to get a new shop broom and as she entered the big box store a girl in an orange apron with big white letters greeted her and handed her the printed sheet of daily specials. As my wife took the handout and passed the greeter she overheard her talking to another lady, who was talking about someone who had recently passed away. Later, after my wife picked out my new shop broom she saw this young person still talking to the lady, and even later after checking out and paying for the item, they were still talking.

My wife is someone who has a tendency to "get involved" and usually bonds with everyone she meets, so it's not surprising that as she put her new purchase in the car she decided to go back into the store to talk to the young person in the orange apron. When she re-entered the store they were still talking and without hesitating my wife walked up and complimented the greeter for doing such a great job. I think that by then the conversation had moved on to other subjects but the older lady immediately agreed and complimented the greeter as well. After telling me this story my wife concluded by saying that, "what she saw in the face of this young black girl was the face of Jesus Christ". We are all called to be Christ to each other and to the world, of course, but it's important to understand what that means. You, me, my wife, and the girl in the orange apron with the big white letters are the body of Christ doing his work and building his kingdom. Talk about beautiful birthday presents, my simple shop broom comes to me via an encounter with my Lord and Savior; how cool is that!