Paths

It started with a morning prayer: “Teach me Your Ways.” Unexpectedly on the way to church an elderly woman crossed the road.  The temperatures were below freezing.  We turned around and gave her a lift to the grocery store a quarter of a mile away. She needed some essentials that her group home didn’t offer.  I felt uneasy leaving here even though she assured us she wasn’t far from home.  So we left for church where we had other duties, and frankly we love joining in worship with our small, informal, fun community.  This was the Sunday many in our area struggled over the Seahawks game at 10:00 or church.  Some went to church and some stayed home to watch the game. For us this wasn’t a huge issue, although we do like to watch football sometimes, but we had made a commitment to go, so off we went thinking that was our personal test.  No, the real test was were we going to care for an elderly woman out in the sub freezing weather.  Of all people, I who am trying so hard to not be a religious person, but a loving person missed it.  Well, to be fair I got half of it, but how much better would it have been to wait for her to do her shopping and take her home.  I am grateful my prayer was answered even though it was painful to see where I still need to grow.  So I will keep praying to learn and practice the ways of Jesus and hope I do better next time.  A sweet ending to the story for us was that after we left the church building we wandered down the Ave. with our son looking for a place to eat and perhaps catch the last few minutes of the game.  Sure enough we heard hooting and hollering from a pub.  We walked in, found a spot and were able to catch the last minutes of a very exciting game, albeit disappointing for Seahawks fans.  That’s what I love about walking with Jesus: it’s grace upon grace, no condemnation, just a steep learning curve to be like Him.