I’ll title this
blog: =*p;hflYV98B hjr&js~gtuw0bsujd.
I’m thankful for
the messages of encouragment to me in regards to my blog. I was surprised the day after I posted
my intent to write and heard from people I didn’t even know.
My heart was
filled with, how shall I say it? =*p;hfIYV98B hjr&js~gtuw0bsujd.
And that’s it
exactly! That is the only way I can describe it. I felt something in my heart that I have never felt before, a
collision of hope and deep healing.
I was stunned with a flood of new life. Possibility. A powerful
glimpse of a new reality. Thank
you all for that. And special
thanks to my Pastor who’s been praying week to week with me for the last year
to get me moving out of a prison of lies.
To just get moving and go forward and see what happens.
Scared? Be scared but keep moving and move in
the very direction that the fire seems the hottest and most terrifying.
Last Friday morning
I felt something I never felt before because I took a little step, though
somewhat pushed, into the direction of my fear. Although I can’t describe for you, or myself, the emotion
that was going on inside of me after I created a small little blog; I have seen what it physically looks like on somebody once.
Massachusetts
began a statewide lottery when I was around twenty-years old. For some strange reason, like all
gamblers say, I thought it was possible I would win. I’m not into gaming,
cards, gambling, or lotteries and never was, but at that time I sensed something
had to do with me and that lottery. It was so strong I was certain I was going to win. I played and lost. I don’t remember if I even picked one
number correctly. About two months
later they ran a story about the guy who won and he was actually over in the
next large town from where I was living.
He was a truck driver for a construction company and wasn’t sure if he
was going to quit working because he liked his job.
I wanted to get a
look at the guy but the paper didn’t run his photo. I wanted to see the guy that got what I thought was coming to
me. I was certain that this lottery had something to do with me and couldn’t
understand why I felt like I did. And
why, even though I was reading about the winner, I still knew something
wasn’t finished with me and that lottery.
On a warm summer
night a few weeks later, I was giving a girl I knew a ride home and I got a mad
craving for ice-cream. There was an ice-cream store nearby that she knew of but
never went to. We finally found it
and parked the car on a side street because the parking lot was so full. We headed through the full lot toward
the crowd waiting in line and that’s when I saw him. In the dark, leaning up against his car,
was a man in his early forties staring up and looking at the stars. Or past
them. He was wearing a dark tee-shirt and his hands were in the front pockets of his
jeans. He continued looking up as we walked past him. As we passed him, within arms reach, I looked at him and saw
his face. That is, I saw something
in his face.
I stopped and
quickly turned around.
The girl I was
with asked me what I was doing and I quietly told her, “That’s the guy that
just won the lottery.”
“How do you know
it’s him?”
“I just know.”
She only saw a guy leaning up against a car and someone else would have probably seen the same, I saw something else altogether. She tried to stop
me but I walked over to him.
“You’re the guy
who won the lottery.” It wasn’t a
question.
He looked at me
with surprise. There was no photo
of him in newspapers or on the news, only a few people from work knew he had
won, and of course his family, that were now gathered around us with their
ice-creams. He was talking to me
but most of him was still in the stars somewhere above us.
“How did you know
it was me?”
I didn’t know
how, but I knew. He told me how he
was having trouble taking it in and that he was still trying to come to terms
with winning. He was wondering how
this was going to change his life and he wanted to keep things the same for his
children. That’s why they took the kids out that Sunday night for ice-cream. He
looked to me like he felt alone, overwhelmed, thankful and terrified all at the
same time. His life was abruptly
going into a direction he never imagined.
His wife stood
close to him in her own small, state of confusion because a stranger in a dark
parking lot somehow knew her husband had just won the state’s first
lottery.
He tried to tell
me how he felt but he couldn’t find the words. I told him my story of how I was so sure I was going to win.
I shook his hand, wished him luck
with his future, and left them standing there with another layer of strange to
deal with.
The girl I was
with asked me again how I knew?
How could I have possibly known that was the guy?
I didn’t know how
but I just knew. I just knew.
On Friday last
week, the day after I posted my first blog, I caught my reflection while I was leaving a coffee shop.
I saw that same thing in my own face, and this time, I knew for myself.
Have a great week everyone, one day and one decision at a time.
