Saturday, November 7, 2009

a job, a drug test, an elevator and a testimony

I got a job. In addition to my day job. This job will help me eliminate debt, pay for ministry school and hopefully a trip back to Africa, I am thinking maybe Madagascar, or Tamara's wedding in Holland this summer. And maybe a new pair of shoes. I will be working nights and weekends. I won't be going home for Thanksgiving or Christmas and my life is over as I know it. It is not necessarily what I WANT to do, but a necessity to stay afloat at the moment. I have weighed all the options and a part-time job just seems to be the answer right now. It is probably something I should have done a long time ago.

The job requires a drug-test. I have never in my life taken a drug-test. It was not required at the Swamp Guinea, the Hart County Chamber of Commerce or for the Georgia House of Representatives. So I am frustrated as I step into this full waiting room of other job applicants from all over Atlanta, all waiting to have lab work performed. I start to get frustrated with the whole thing. I start to question God and His ability to take care of me. I start to question this second job and get angry that I am having to do it. I start to panic and wonder if I can make it any longer, on my own, making ends meet. I start to realize how dissatisfied I am and no longer challenged or passionate and chasing an elusive dream and stuck in a rut. I gripe and complain until my name is called. The test is quick and easy and I step off the elevator in a huff. Mad that my days' plans have been changed because two hours earlier a man from Yugoslavia hired me to do a job for which I am over qualified and that I really don't want.

With my Blackberry in hand I am preparing to make phone calls to change appointments because of this new major change in my schedule and in my life. As I look up, I see a familiar face. I see a woman I know. I know her from my childhood and she is from my hometown. She is as beautiful as I remember and in her late 50's. We are about to brush shoulders and I try to catch her eye as I know she will know me. She stares right at me, but sees right through me. It didn't take me long to realize, she didn't see me at all. She stared right through me. I stopped in the middle of the hall, motionless. I replayed the scene in my mind, I was smiling and looking at her, inches away. Someone was holding her arm, guiding her. I gasp. She cannot see. She is blind. "Oh Dear God in Heaven, forgive me", comes out in one breath and suddenly life is no longer about me. There is no way I can leave that hospital without finding her. I want to love on her. I want to hug her. I want her to know she is not alone. I want to pray for her. I want her to be well. In an instant, my having to work long hours and complaints about my miserable life seem like pitiful, embarrassing, selfish pleas. I have to find her. The focus instantly changes from me to her and my life is small and not everything is about me and someone I know is very sick and her life is painful and frightening and I have no room to utter a single negative word about my own. I didn't turn around to watch her walk into the elevator lobby. There are several sets of elevators, going to various floors. I surmise she went up on those I had just been on and look up to find there are 14 floors. Well, 13. Silly superstitions. I say almost out loud, "Okay God, if you want me to go, you have to tell me what floor". I instantly hear, "7". I blow it off thinking that it was too easy...come on, 7? That's what most anyone would choose, given a choice of 1-14. It's in the middle and it's lucky. Silly superstitions. I get on and stare at the numbers. Someone else gets on and presses 8, so I go with that instead. I get off the elevator and realize I am on the floor with a Psychiatrist and a Plastic Surgeon. It didn't feel right. She wasn't there. I go back to 7. And there she is. My heart still breaks. She is afraid. She is sick. She has kidney failure. She is blind. It breaks my heart in two. I kneel beside her and do all I know to do. We hold hands and pray. I have seen God show up. I do live in debt, but a diffrent kind of debt. I am in debt to God. He created me, sent His son who lives in me and I have no other choice but to repay Him by conquering something and going after the impossible. "The life I live is not my own". This is what we were created for. To be His hands and feet. To love on those in need. It doesn't matter what I do. How much money I make. This is what is important. The sparrow is fed and I have never gone hungry. Running into her, slapped me back into this realization of what I was created to do. Everything else is secondary, tertiary. I don't ever want to be so focused on my own silly endeavors that I don't see the one He has put in front of me. I want to always stop for the one. I pray that my faith, takes her ailment and her lack and forces it into reality. Yes, I wanted to see a miracle. I don't know why some people are healed and some are not. I could go round and round with this one in my head all day long. He doesn't talk to me about these things. I can't get any answers. But I know why I was created, that mission is clear. I know that sickness does not come from Him. I know that it was not by chance that I saw her. It is a huge facility. She lives over 100 miles away. It wasn't by chance that I got that second job, that I needed that drug-test or that I chose Crawford Long from a list of LabCorp facilities. All He wants me to do is take His values and mirror who He is around me.