Entertaining Angels

I took the boys to the store yesterday to look for some jeans and shoes. The holes on the knees of their jeans are big enough to fit a basketball in there. Now, I know that there are some people out there that pay big bucks to get the same look, but I'm just not one of them. I think it's crazy when people buy jeans with holes in them for anything over $10. Bring them over to me, pay me the 80 extra dollars and I'll be glad to put as many holes in those jeans as you would like.

While we were getting ready to leave the mall, we stopped to get a cookie. As we were standing there, a man approached us and starting looking at AB's shirt. It had a panther and a guitar and other stuff on it. AB was inching back because the man was getting closer. All this man wanted to do was look at the shirt. I finally got AB to stand still long enough to get the man to see what he wanted.

This man had long gray and black hair that was in a pony tail. His beard was just as long and was in a braid with a bright red rubber band on it. He had the bushy eyebrows and his front two teeth were missing. He was wearing a vest and some jeans with some boots. Yes, he was not the best looking man to look at, but he was not gross. And he did smell just a tad bit.

As I was talking to this man, the boys relaxed and were smiling at him. But the people around us were not. There were two ladies about 5 feet away that looked at me like I was crazy to be talking to this man. They huddled together and kept moving away from where we were talking to this man. The cookie girl asked me for my order and smiled an "I'm sorry" smile.

I got my order and still listened to this man tell me his story. He finished and I told him good bye. The people all looked at me weird. He stood in line to get his order and we left.

He wasn't hurting anyone and he wasn't being rude or ugly. Yes, he was strange looking, but we are all strange looking at one time or another. Some of us more so than others.

I guess what made me stand there and talk to him was that while I didn't have to, I wanted to. The thought that kept coming to my mind while talking to him was, "what if that was Jesus?" So I couldn't leave and not be kind to him. My only regret is that I didn't offer him a cookie.