in the fury of the moment

the smiling Christ

I am starting this morning's post with my reading this morning from "Reflections for Ragamuffins" (by Brennan Manning):

The smiling Christ heals and liberates. With newly discovered delight in ourselves, we go out to our brothers and sisters as we are, where they are, and minister the smiling Christ to them. Not far away from us, there is someone who is afraid and needs our courage; someone who is lonely and needs our presence. There is someone hurt needing our healing; unloved, needing our touching; old, needing to feel that we care; weak, needing the support of our shared weakness. One of the most healing words I ever spoke as a confessor was to an old priest with a drinking problem. "Just a few years ago," I said, "I was a hopeless alcoholic in the gutter of Fort Lauderdale." "You?" he cried. "O thank God!" When we bring a smile to the face of someone in pain, we have brought Christ to him.

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, Selah.
- Psalm 67:1

Yesterday morning I was taking my pneumonia-laden mom to run various errands. We ended up at a bank that I have never been to before. My mom was a little punchy from her medication, and so she was sort of giddy with the teller. The teller (Laquesha) didn't break a smile. She seemed annoyed and bothered to be there. I looked around her work station and saw various little saying and cards posted on the wall. I noticed one faded computer printout that read:

If God brought you to it, He will bring you through it.
In happy moments, praise Him.
In difficult moments, seek Him.
In quiet moments, worship Him.
In painful moments, seek Him.
In every moment, thank Him.

Ok, so it's a little oversimplistic. But sometimes, in an effort to be deep and profound, I think maybe I make things more complicated than they need to be. I told Laquesha I really liked that little writing. Instantly she smiled and said "thank you." I went on and told her how very true it is, and I thanked her for having it up there, because it was something that I really needed to be reminded of at that moment. I am sure she blushed. She seemed almost shy all of a sudden, as I asked her if she really believed what it said. She said that she did. I asked her if it would be ok for me to copy it down so I didn't forget it. She giggled and said sure. I grabbed a bank envelope and wrote down a rough copy, and we left. The Laquesha who had glared at us when we walked up to the window 8 minutes earlier was nowhere to be found ... instead there was a Laquesha who actually WAVED goodbye to us, and -- with a beautiful smile on her face -- told us to have a wonderful day.

Last night I did laundry and ended up washing that bank envelope. I discovered that as I was pulling clothes out of the dryer, and found several tiny shreds of paper. I tried to piece them together, but there were parts missing. Though I was able to recall the lines without too much difficulty, I did come across one part of that envelope that had a full line: "In every moment, thank Him." Interesting. Well, I was struck by those few moments in that bank, but they didn't really mean quite as much to me until today, when I read that devotional about how there are people all around us with needs to be met ... Somehow yesterday my life happened to cross with the life of a frowning young lady named Laquesha. And somehow God used me to bring a smile to her face. For moments like those, I thank Him ... and I pray that my life will be a fluid movement from one such moment to another.

posted by Krista @ 9:12 AM