November 23, 2007
Entertaining Angels Unawares (Heb 13:2 KJV)
We always turn off the outside house light when everyone is in for the night, but a few days ago the trash had to go out and the last person in forgot to turn off the light. Around 7:00 pm an elderly lady, who appeared to be in her late seventies, rang the doorbell. She was lost, cold and frightened. I learned she’d just moved to Colorado from North Carolina and on the spur of the moment she decided to walk to the grocery store. Almost apologetically she said, “I didn’t realize it got dark so quickly here.” It was already dark when she finished shopping and left the store. Pulling her small cart loaded with groceries she’d taken a wrong turn and had been wondering around for some time. Showing me a map she’d torn from a phone book she ask to be pointed in the right direction, but the poor thing was well over a mile from her destination. We took her home and offered to help put her groceries away, but she said they could wait until the next day. She was tired and just wanted to go to bed. I don’t think angels live in houses, but if they do she just might qualify as one.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----We are a strange lot. We are quick to help the innocent, those of our own, but the Lord tells us to love our enemies and to do good to them, whom we turn our backs upon. Not that a drunk is actively trying to destroy us or harm us, but he is an enemy to our standards and philosophy. I think the unwillingness to help the drunk comes more from an aversion to his condition, a fear of his lack of control, and a detesting of his self-chosen helplessness. But really, the drunk is the one in need of the more help. As my response to your blog of November 21 pointed out, if we are going to help a drunk at all, we need to know how. Someone I know very well was observed drunk in an alley relieving himself. The police were called. He was jailed. And his life has approached one step further towards long term incarceration, the only thing that is going to keep him from pickling his insides with alcohol. At least you asked your drunk stranger if you could call the police to help him. I should have left my drunk strangers at the side of the road and proceeded to the nearest phone, whether they liked it or not. By calling the police without question the best good might be done for them, and maybe we could have been angels to them, as well as to the community at large.
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