I really wanted a chocolate chip cookie. Somehow that was the aroma I sensed in the Convention Center sitting over 4,000 women for the Women of Joy Conference. My new friend wanted a hot dog and we were just sitting, waiting for the first session to begin, but we had plenty of time. I offered to go and get her hot dog and see too if I could satisfy my growing yen for a chocolate chip cookie. The first concession stand I tried offered a shorter line, but no hot dogs, or chocolate chip cookies. The loooong line to my left gave hints of hot dogs, so I walked over. I still didn’t see anything about chocolate chip cookies, but I was willing nonetheless to wait out the line for my friend’s hot dog. Once in line, I observed another conference attendee in line just ahead of me, and almost at least said “hi” until I saw the young pre-teen girl and her mom behind me, and that’s when the “hi” bubbled out. Where you from??? (That has become my most favorite question living in South Carolina, because in my own immediate living area, almost everyone seems to be from somewhere other than South Carolina, and then I am blessed with another story of how it happened that both of us were talking with each other.) The mom behind me was no exception and she wasn’t even living in South Carolina. She was living in central Tennessee and had brought both her daughter and her own mom to the conference. She felt like the conference might offer some encouragement to her mom, because the mom’s son, had passed away just a few months earlier. Suddenly, I was no longer in line for a hot dog. My heart had connected with a grieving sister who was also grieving for her mom.
My own tears came as I fumbled in my purse to find a contact card with my email address and phone number – and it would also explain why my tears had come because it was the contact card I give when I want to offer help to moms who have suffered the loss of a child. Two strangers were no longer strangers and even a pre-teen seemed to understand. No, I couldn’t offer a moms support group in the immediate Tennessee area she was from, but there was still much I could offer, and in the moment, I just wanted her to know a stranger cared, and a stranger no longer wanted to be a stranger. I heard from my newest friend after the conference and she said, “I must say that I can not help but believe that meeting you was a divine appointment! My mother's grief is what prompted me to have her attend the conference! I now believe it was so we could make your acquaintance. Thank you for speaking to my daughter and I, opening the conversation!”
I could have gone home from the conference after I brought the hot dog over to my first friend. I was already so full with the joy of God making Himself real through me. I did stay though and was blessed over and over again in different ways. When I did go back home, I followed through with the connections a grieving mom in Tennessee still had open to her. And a few mornings later, the early morning radio chatter on our local Christian station was challenging us “to have the conversation.” The challenge was to have a willingness to warmly engage in conversation with others who may be different from us so we could grow in understanding. The challenge foremost in my own thinking was to have the conversation that helps to build bridges. So often we isolate and we isolate others. So often we can leave the one who is hurting or confused or alone – we can leave them in their aloneness because we simply never thought to open the conversation. I was sooooo impacted, and my prayer is that God will allow me to build a bridge to someone else – and prayerfully, He will use you too.
– Bev
(Related Bible reading: Ephesians 5:1,2,15-20; 2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
