The Best of the PhxP
It was an important milestone in my recovery, a big deal to me emotionally.
I had driven the few blocks to the convenience store by myself and I was going in for an ice-cold Mexican Coca-Cola to celebrate.
My daily visit to this little store was a part of my life’s routine and being able to drive there by myself and buy something meant life was going to be normal again after my surgeries.
My strength was small and my gait slow and deliberate… it took a lot to get out of the truck, more to inch my way to the back of the store where the bottles of bliss are shelved.
I made it though, and began to shuffle toward the cash registers with my frosty treasure in hand. About halfway up the aisle, I was more than a little disturbed to see the clerks in emotional distress… one was unable to control her sobbing, the other seemingly unable and unwilling to look my direction.
“I can’t stand to see you this way,” the crying one almost shouted.
I was… stunned.
They didn’t “know” me. They didn’t go to my church. They had never read my book. They had never visited my Phoenix Preacher blog. I had never given them anything, counseled them through anything, never done anything except shop for a few minutes every day.
Yet, I mattered.
A lot.
This confused me, as I have always expected to be loved according to the measure of what I could do or had already done. Thus, I have spent my life focusing on doing, rather than being. I have worked myself to exhaustion and illness to “do” in order to feel worthy of love and acceptance.
Sometimes, I have even believed that what I have done should entitle me to be less responsible for what I am…
What a shock to find that my role as customer had trumped pastor, writer, blogger, etc. What a shock to find that some had accepted me for who I was rather than anything I’ve done… that the mundane living out of my daily life had more impact than any of my works.
What a shock to find that who I am really is more important than what I do.
That’s almost biblical…
Make your own application…
Michael, you demonstrate more of the indwelling Christ than you are aware of, I think…..
Em,
If you saw me during this website move you may change your opinion… 🙂
Probably not, Michael…. Humans have their ups and downs – even Christians
You should see me taking my daughter’s dumb dog out to the potty first thing in the morning. Have to have her on a leash as she doesn’t come when called…..
The one time I say dammit, dog. 😇. Sometimes it slides into damn you, dog. 🙆
Michael,
I loved this post! Back in high school I disappeared from my normal five block walk to the stop, two bus route to high school due to surgery. I was in the hospital for two weeks before going home to convalesce in a brace in bed for several weeks. A lot of people dropped by, but some were unexpected-my bus driver on the first part of my trip to school, the man I always greeted when he walked his dog, my Spanish teacher who I was actually rather afraid of…I realized that God shares his love for us in unexpected ways.
Beautiful!
Wow… thanks for sharing!
I started writing… but really… what you describe says enough.
And you do matter to many, not for what you do, but for who you are – your soul.
Thank you, Elena…this applies to you as well, my friend…