Chance Encounter?

So, today I was working at the store....and I had one of those encounters with a customer, you know the kind of encounter that jolts you (actually it was fear, pure and simple). No one else was in the store for this whole encounter. Interesting.

This guy comes into the store, angry, I know he's angry and for whatever reason I know that it isn't one thing...he is angry at the world. Hey, so am I a lot of the time, so I can relate and I smile. He doesn't smile back. He spends a long time looking around and questioning me on the "idols" that the store sells....hey, I think a lot of things can be idols and certainly in the store as well, and I try to share my thoughts....uh uh...not going to happen. He then freaks on me, and uses a lot of language that I have heard before but not usually in the "christian bookstore venue", because we don't have the 1611 King James Authorized Version of the Bible. The Bible that according to this guy, God spoke into existence and apparently told him was the only translation of the Bible that the Holy Spirit spoke through and all the other translations were just ____, let's say not.

Yep, so I know by this guy's manner and language that he has had a tough go of it and that something is really not right....call it what you like.... I spoke gently to him and prayed for the words to make him just a little less angry. He left the store having apologized for his colourful language and offensive manner. He smiled once, and I don't think I changed his mind about anything, and I wasn't trying to. I just asked God to give him Peace, even for a few minutes.....and I think my prayer was answered.

So many hurting, and mixed up souls out there. I know that a lot of them have a thread of spirituality running through them and somewhere, somehow it got askewed... the demons run rampant through lives of the vulnerable.

I remember breathing a sigh of relief as this man left the store, but also I thanked God for removing the fear and putting some words in my mouth to not avoid or offend this man or show fear to him, but to show him Love and in a very minor way I hope he saw Love that comes not from this scared soul, but from Christ who lived that scenario out right before my eyes. I continue to stand in my simple life that is insignificant in so many ways, but not through the eyes of the Living God.