Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Proverbs 16:7
Best believe, in the City of Brotherly love, people are ready for a fight.
After I finished up a job this afternoon, I decided to walk to Center City to the Greyhound station and find out just how to get to Ocean City, NJ. Surely, the people at customer service will have the answer I thought, putting my headphones in and turning in the direction of City Hall.
The station was dirty and downtrodden as ever but I felt hopeful! It will be worth the walk, I thought approaching customer service. I watched as the two attendants at the desk were of no help to the girl in front of me. They vaguely told her to go out the door and make a right. We all watched as she walked out the door and promptly made a left- to which the attendants doubled over laughing.
“Yeah, don’t follow her!!” the male attendant said still laughing.
My turn… “Hi guys, can you tell me how to get to Ocean City, NJ?”
“Nah…” the girl said as my mouth fell open in surprise.
Was she serious???
“We can’t help ya, but ya need to go out and make a left to the N.J transit person, he’s wearing a stripped vest.” The guy piped in.
The only person in a stripped vest was a bus driver with his legs kicked up over some seats on a bus, fast asleep.
Suddenly, a homeless woman shrieked and a one winged pigeon took to the sky as I made the lonesome trek across the asphalt desert to the what looked like an abandon N.J transit ‘help’ booth.
There was a woman sitting inside the glass booth who didn’t look happy at my approach.
“Hello, can you please help me find out information of how to get to Ocean City, NJ?” I asked through the glass.She said something back to which I couldn’t hear at all because there was absolutely no intercom or anything. The only thing I could hear was the sound of the daggers from her eyes piercing my skin with white hot annoyance.
She kept pointing to N.J transit ticket machines. So I meander over to the machines and stand next to a man as clueless as me. We ponder aloud our many choices… “Avalon, Wild wood, Atlantic City…” Yet, we are so very far away still from having any idea of how to work the machines.
So I do it.
I dare.
I walk back over to the woman behind the booth and knock on the glass again “Can you please help us? I don’t know how to work the machines and it’s your job to help….”
With those last words, the woman comes flying out of the booth. The doors on the booth literally bang against the wall and keep on swinging.
“SO YOU”RE TELLING ME WHAT MY JOB IS NOW???” the woman asks stepping close to my face. As sweat puddles into my bra and down my back from the afternoon heat, as a ball of old weave hair blows softly across my sandaled toes like so much tumbleweed, I feel a strange combination of calm and wanting to step to this woman so clearly in the wrong…
The old me… She would have probably have taken a swing but
Something is happening…
God, intervenes and invisibly turns this woman’s hard heart soft.
I don’t have to fight. God will fight my battles for me.
In the blink of eye. That’s my Jesus!
“You’re supposed to help…” I say again.
To my surprise, she heads to the machines and tries with all her might to help me.
Just like that. We are both pushing at buttons together.
We ponder- Is Wild wood near to Ocean City?? We shrug our shoulders and go back to pushing buttons. I scribble down a help line phone number on the machine and as I go to leave, I turn and smile at the woman and she gives me a smile back. We are old friends now. Been through our ups, been through some downs.
“Remember, those buses only run a few times a day okay? So don’t miss it!” She calls after me.
I sit down at a bench and call the number and get all my answers, just like that.
It turns out, I won’t even need to come to the Greyhound station after all. It seems that whole situation was just a reminder not to take offense at an angry and hostile world. Even if people are rude, ticking time bombs- it’s up to us to walk in the Spirit and carefully dismantle the bombs with the wisdom of God and find the beauty in people. I believe in that moment, I wasn’t even all that meek but God gave me the grace to quickly forgive the woman rather then fighting her or storming off.
I believe God took over the situation because He is merciful and ever caring for His children.
Best believe, a dry dusty, crusty city of angry souls can be turned into an oasis of refreshing love if Jesus is present.
“I keep a close watch on this heart of mine, I keep my eyes wide open all the time…” Johnny Cash
Sweetness and Light 