We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog...

I know that if you're still keeping up with this blog, you've enjoyed hearing from Emily more directly over these past weeks.  I thought after she came home it would be easier to keep this thing up - that without all of the shuttling back and forth to the hospital I would somehow have more time to reflect on this whole thing - but as it turns out life is relentless and we've been just as busy as ever.  Now that Emily's back to work for a few half-days each week, and fall has kicked my church schedule back into overdrive it seems like the moments where I get to sit and reflect have been displaced by staff meetings, church councils, fall retreats, sermon writing and the like.

That is why I'm glad to report that just now I had a moment to stop and think.

I just met Jesus on Franklin Street.  Well, more directly I met Kevin, a man who is one of the many homeless residents of Chapel Hill.  

Kevin asked me for some spare change.  I didn't have any spare change because I never carry actual money anymore (and because Emily requisitions all of my quarters for the soda machine at work) and so I was tempted to just walk on by, but I stopped and explained my situation.

"How about a cup of coffee then?" he asked, and he was standing in front of Starbucks.

He had me.  I was on my way to Caribou Coffee to buy some coffee for myself.  How could I not spare an extra cup for this man?  I agreed to buy him a coffee if he agreed to come with me to Caribou (because friends don't let friends drink Starbucks) and he did.  

On the way we had a short, but pleasant conversation, and now both of us have coffee.  What really struck me is that in my interaction with Kevin I had the opportunity, in that Matthew 25 "sheep and goats" sort of way, to see Jesus.  And while Jesus never said "whenever you have given a cup of coffee to one of the least of these you have given it unto me" it was nice to be able to be a means of grace to another human being.

This story is my way of saying thank you to all of you who have supported us over these past months, and who continue to support us.  Each small kindness means the world to us.  It may not seem like a big deal to bring food by our house on a particularly busy day, but it is a moment of grace for us, and we deeply appreciate it.  As things settle back into something that looks a bit more normal, I pray that Emily and I can be means of grace to others half as well as you have been for us.