Today I was happy to cross paths with a particular homeless woman who here I'll call "Anna." As I was talking with Anna next to the van I use, I opened the back two doors of the van to take something out. The back doors of the van easily swing. Even if there's just a little wind, the doors readily swish back and forth.
At one point, when the back doors of the van were open, Anna was bent over, collecting some of her property which she had placed on the sidewalk. She got a little distracted from the task at hand. One of the doors turned toward her, hitting the end of the bill of her baseball cap she was wearing. She acknowledged the gesture, remarking, "Yes, thank you, God."
I was struck by how she seized the opportunity to show gratitude to God for a gentle little tap on the head. It seemed especially touching how she thanked God for that tiny collision given how, she told me, she had spent much of today repeatedly crying. Even amidst such intense pain she had been feeling, she found it in herself to give thanks always.*
It is true it was just an insignificant slight bump on the head. Perhaps one can see it as something to ignore and forget. Yet, as Jean-Pierre de Caussade counsels us in "The Sacrament of the Present Moment," we are always being afforded opportunities to embrace how God is trying to reach out to us. In every microscopic fraction of time, as "The Cloud of Unknowing" describes, we have chances to embrace the will of God.
God speaks to us as we are able to hear. God gives to us according to our capacity to receive. God does not give us more than we can handle.** God gives to us what we can manage, for in our dear Jesus, we do not have an unsympathetic mediator, but rather one who is most certainly sympathetic to us, since He was tested just as we are tested.*** Therefore, God meets us where we are, in the place in which we find ourselves. Anna had wept much today, and so God gently and lovingly reached out to her and poked her playfully in the head.
In this vein, when Anna thanked God, I noted, "Yes, Anna. It's like God was just saying to you, 'Now, Anna, stay on task!'"
* 1 Thessalonians 5:18
** 1 Corinthians 10:13
*** Hebrews 4:15
At one point, when the back doors of the van were open, Anna was bent over, collecting some of her property which she had placed on the sidewalk. She got a little distracted from the task at hand. One of the doors turned toward her, hitting the end of the bill of her baseball cap she was wearing. She acknowledged the gesture, remarking, "Yes, thank you, God."
I was struck by how she seized the opportunity to show gratitude to God for a gentle little tap on the head. It seemed especially touching how she thanked God for that tiny collision given how, she told me, she had spent much of today repeatedly crying. Even amidst such intense pain she had been feeling, she found it in herself to give thanks always.*
It is true it was just an insignificant slight bump on the head. Perhaps one can see it as something to ignore and forget. Yet, as Jean-Pierre de Caussade counsels us in "The Sacrament of the Present Moment," we are always being afforded opportunities to embrace how God is trying to reach out to us. In every microscopic fraction of time, as "The Cloud of Unknowing" describes, we have chances to embrace the will of God.
God speaks to us as we are able to hear. God gives to us according to our capacity to receive. God does not give us more than we can handle.** God gives to us what we can manage, for in our dear Jesus, we do not have an unsympathetic mediator, but rather one who is most certainly sympathetic to us, since He was tested just as we are tested.*** Therefore, God meets us where we are, in the place in which we find ourselves. Anna had wept much today, and so God gently and lovingly reached out to her and poked her playfully in the head.
In this vein, when Anna thanked God, I noted, "Yes, Anna. It's like God was just saying to you, 'Now, Anna, stay on task!'"
* 1 Thessalonians 5:18
** 1 Corinthians 10:13
*** Hebrews 4:15
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