As we were walking in Huddle House that Saturday, an elderly man was walking out. He and I made eye contact and when our eyes locked, it was like the positive and negative sides of two magnets, we couldn't pull our eyes off each other. It was a slow motion moment....and as we passed each other, he reached out and touched my arm and said, "I doubt there's any food left in there dear, as I think I ate the last of it."
We both laughed as our paths continued moving on in opposite directions.
There was something about this man. There was something about the touch of his hand on my arm. Although I'd never seen him before, we had some kind of strange invisible connection I couldn't explain.
We finished our breakfast with our neighbors and then drove back to Gandy's to pick up my Jeep. As I walked into their office, I heard a familiar voice behind me say "It's you", as I turned and looked straight into the face of the man I had run into at Huddle House just an hour earlier. The very one I had this strange invisible connection with.....the one who had touched my heart by touching my arm. He had felt it too.
We stood there and talked for over an hour. We both know we were meant to cross paths that day. I learned his heart had been broken three years earlier when his wife had passed away and left him to walk this life alone. He went on to tell me about how when his food arrived earlier that morning at Huddle House, he had taken his cowboy hat off, bowed his head and prayed, just as he does every time he enjoys a meal. When he looked up after ending his prayer, he saw a young couple staring at him from another table. He smiled at them, tipped his hat, and started eating his breakfast alone. When he went to pay his bill, it had already been taken care of. The young couple, long gone by this time, had paid for his breakfast.
He looked me straight in the eyes that morning in the lobby of Gandy's and said, "I couldn't imagine why some young couple would want to pay for some old man's breakfast they didn't know. But then I realized it was probably because I had bowed my head and prayed in front of them. Can you believe that?" he said. "They paid for my breakfast because I thanked God for my food."
And like a light bulb going off in my soul, I understood. I understood that our prayers are for more than the blessing of food.....they are for the blessing of people....strangers.....waitresses....those watching us we don't know are watching.
It's our quiet way of being a witness to others.....and living our love for God.
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