Encountering Old Friends
Yesterday was a rather strange day for me.
I did all the normal things I normally do: work, go to bed, woke up, be hungry, eat, watch some NFL, sleep... you know, the normal stuff.
With it being Thanksgiving though, I figured I should at least have some turkey and stuffing - though there was no way I was going to put all that work into making it just for myself.
As luck would have it (am I am not being sarcastic) I also did not get any invitations from my few friends to have turkey dinner at their house.
Instead, I jumped in my truck and started driving around town looking for that rare dinner that would be open on Thanksgiving night.
Oddly enough, my favorite dinner was open - and it was packed!
I ordered the thanksgiving special and a few minutes later I had a plate of food way bigger than I could eat sitting in front of me. It of course had all the normal things one would expect. Turkey, stuffing, mash potatoes, cranberry sauce, so on and so forth. And of course I ordered myself a piece of pumpkin pie too!
Now I tend to think I am a pretty observant individual. I have spent a lot of years training myself to be aware of those around me. Call me paranoia I guess. Towards the end of the meal I was sitting there checking out a new group of people that had come into the dinner. For some odd reason my eye caught one of the waitresses. I had seen her walking around for the last 30 or so minutes but never gave her much thought, like I didn't give any of the waitresses any thought (after all, one does not normally get attacked my waitresses)
As I started to pay attention to those one a bit more my eyes were having a hard time placing her, but my ears where dead-on accurate.
Sure enough, it was a person that I use to be very good friends with and had not seen in probably 7 or 8 years. She had gotten married, moved away, and that was the last I had heard from her. I had stayed on-and-off in contact with her family (her family had been my closest friends for almost 10 years) but never had any idea what she was up too.
I sat there wondering what in the world had brought her back to her home town. How one goes from being a successful real estate agent to a manager at a dinner. But, I did not ponder on it too long. I was getting close to finishing my last cup of coffee and it was time to get back home to do some more work on ChristianBlog.Com (which, btw, was me developing an entirely new blog creation system -- which totally rocks!!)
So I jump up, throw on my Backhouse Oilskin Stockman Coat which my sister got me for Christmas last year - and I have been wearing the last few days as the rain is just pounding us here in Humboldt County, and I walked up to the cash register to pay and leave.
She gives me a once over (it was obviously she was trying to place who I was) and I handed her my credit-card and she put one-and-one together. She asked how I was done: "fine". She asked if I was causing any trouble "Of course not" (which I doubt she believed) and how my sister was done: "fine".
And, with that I paid my bill and walked out.
So, what is the point of all of this blabbering...
Well, I am not really sure. It is not every day I encounter a friend who I have not seen for nearly ten years. What few friends I have had over the years have pretty much never moved. She was about the only one who has. I never did ask her what brought her back (does not really matter after all) and I did nothing to indicate I cared to know. I suppose this was not very nice of me. It has been bugging me the last few hours.
This has not been one of those moments when Lazarith was raised from the dead and his family first realized he had returned.
This has not been one of those moments when the lost son returned home.
Rather, it was just a off-chance encounter with somebody who use to be a good friend, which would never have happened if I would have had family around, or been invited over to a friends house, or decided to cook at home, or stop at any other place that was open.
I think these chance-encounters that God set's up for us are unique and should be treasured - even if they do not mean much to you at the time. Sure we can believe in "coincidences" but I am somebody who tends to believe that God is usually the Guy that is doing the coincidenceing.
Blessings,
John B. Abela
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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Author: abelajohnb
Location: California USA
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Blog Entries: 161 (archive)
Blog Comments: 624
raised in a private christian school until his senior year, mr. abela has been around the christian faith nearly his entire life. at the age of twenty-two mr. abela was called to the ministry as a lay-minister where he served as a youth minister for nearly seven years and then...
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