Yesterday I was waiting to try on a new top and some other items in a local boutique in a very long queue that seemed to have stopped moving because they only had three cubicles and one of them seemed to being used to store stuff. I couldn’t see anyone coming in or going out of the other two cubicles.
The woman in front of me in the queue started moaning and complaining about the wait. I looked at her and felt really sorry for her, as she seemed so stressed. ‘This is really getting to you, isn’t it?’ I said sympathetically.
‘Yes, it is,’ she agreed. She had just come from work where people had not done their jobs properly, and that was stressful, and she was in her lunch hour and in rush to do go to the post office where she thought she would have to queue again.
‘I used to be like that,’ I said. ‘I was always running from one thing to another feeling stressed.’ ‘I’m always like this,’ said the woman. ‘This is my life. But you seem so serene and peaceful’
I started to tell her about my life, about how I had often kept myself busy trying to find fulfillment in friends and my work, and nothing had seemed to do the trick. I told her how I came to understand through someone that my continual striving was an attempt to fill a gap in my life that could only be filled with Jesus.
The woman plied me with loads of questions and before we knew it, it was her turn to go into a cubicle. What she did next really surprised as she said to the shop girl in charge ‘Can you let someone else go first? I’ve got to finish this conversation!’
Then she turned to me and said, ‘I know this is a really strange question, but will you have lunch with me?’ I readily accepted and we agreed to meet in 20 minutes time.
That wasn’t all though as whilst I was trying on my stuff I overheard one shop assistant say to another, ‘That woman just met another in the queue for the first time and now they are going to have lunch together to talk about Jesus.’
When I came out of the cubicle the shop girl asked me if I knew the lady I was going to lunch with. ‘No,’ I said, and gave her a huge smile.
We met later as agreed for a fantastic meal, which she paid for, and the whole time she was asking me more questions. By the end of it I felt as if I’d known her for years and we agreed to keep in touch. As she doesn’t live locally she is now going to look for a church in her area.
Wednesday 13 February 2008
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4 comments:
That is such a cool experience. God uses us even in changing rooms!
Thanks for my first reply, Roothie.
No worries. :-)
Wow 5 minutes after my post you reply!
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