Comfort Hope

All because a stranger waved at me

It was my daughter’s first day of her sophomore year. But even more importantly, it was her first year attending high school in person, after completing her freshman year virtually due to the pandemic. I’m not sure who was more nervous, but it was probably me. 

Kendall was so thrilled to be going to school in person because she said virtual schooling had been “too comfortable” and she wanted the challenge of being with other students her age. I wholeheartedly agreed, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t a sobbing mess on my way home. (Isn’t that motherhood for you? We don’t just feel one emotion at a time. Oh no, there’s room for ALL the feels at any given moment.)

So I drove, and I cried. I cried, and I drove. I was ecstatic that my prayers had been answered, that the kids were going back to school in person. But still . . . just leaving her there after our whole family had hunkered down the previous year, working and schooling mostly from home – it was tough. 

That’s when I spotted her, a woman I had never seen before, standing by the side of the busy highway. What was she doing there? Was she hurt? Was she about to get hurt? As I got closer, I realized she was waving. And not just at one person that she knew. She was waving at every one of us drivers on our way to begin our day. 

I was perplexed. Why was she doing this? Was it even safe? But my concerns didn’t stop me from waving back at her. And as the mornings rolled on, I looked forward to that time where I would see her – now wearing a reflective vest for safety – standing by the side of the road, waving at us. Waving at me! It felt like this stranger knew me. I could see the joy in her eyes as I passed her and returned the wave to let her know I appreciated her gesture of kindness.

I saw a segment on the local news one day featuring this woman, and I found out that her name is Pat, and she has taken this on as a bit of a calling, to reach out to others with a wave and a smile every morning.

Kendall made it through that sophomore year and then her junior year most recently, and so did I, spurred on in part by a total stranger named Pat who somehow knows how much it means to people to be recognized and celebrated – even with something as simple as a wave. 

I have spent quite a bit of time musing about this simple act of kindness and generosity on the part of Pat, and why – with all of our advancements in technology and entertainment and social media and being able to order absolutely anything we could ever want online and have it shipped to us for free – a simple wave from a complete stranger could bring me such comfort.

Honestly, she reminds me a bit of my late grandmother, who somehow made every person in the room feel like the most important person in the room with her warmth and joy. But as I was reading 1 Samuel 23:16 this past weekend, I realized what Pat has been doing for me these past couple years.

Just a quick background for this verse:  King Saul is pursuing David. He is set on killing David. And David is on the run. I imagine David is weary and homesick and confused because he never did anything except try to serve Saul. Yet Saul wants to kill him. Here is where verse 16 comes in:  And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God.

I love how simply this is stated. Jonathan went to David and helped him find strength in God. Because sometimes when we’re weary, we need a friend to come to us and help us find strength in God. We know that God is always with us, that He never changes and He will never leave us.

However, sometimes we need help finding strength in God. When we’re stuck in the middle of a hard situation, we can’t always see clearly to find the strength that God is holding out to us. 

Think about placing your sunglasses on top of your head when you’re out and no longer need them. Time goes by, you get distracted, and before you know it, you need them again. Yet they aren’t in the cupholder in the car. They aren’t in your purse. They definitely aren’t in their case. What you need is someone else who can see that they are sitting right where you put them earlier – on top of your head.

That’s what Pat’s attention to me felt like – a friend helping me find strength in God. It doesn’t matter how long we have been Christians or how many Bible verses we have memorized or how many hours of nursery duty or Sunday School we have completed, we need each other. We need friends to help us find our sunglasses sometimes, and we need them to help us find strength in God. 

I was thinking last night about what Jonathan might have done to help David find strength in God. What specifically did he do in order to accomplish this? Perhaps he reminded David of God’s calling on his life or of God’s faithfulness to His people. Maybe they even sang together in worship. We don’t know for sure. All we know is that it worked. David was refreshed and strengthened in God. 

I think it’s pretty simple (but deeply meaningful). We remind one another about the ability of God in our situation, about the hope we have in Him. Whether that takes the form of a wave to a stranger or holding the door open for someone at the grocery store or a coffee date with a friend who is in the throes of hardship, it all comes from a place of kindness, a place of seeing (“I see you, I care, and we both have reason to hope!”). 

This brings to mind a very special lunch date a couple years ago. When I was going through a tough time, my mom took me out to lunch, and then we wandered into a boutique in the same shopping center as the restaurant. “Look around and see what you want, and I will buy it for you,” she told me. Now, I was in my 40s, but I felt like a little kid in a candy store. I took my time searching all of the treasures that boutique had to offer. Once I selected what I wanted, I carried my prize to the register, and my mother paid for it.

I had chosen an exquisite wooden tray with intricate carvings in it. The cashier wrapped and bagged it, and I got to take it home. I texted my mom later, after I had gotten it home and unwrapped and had noticed that the sticker on it said “bread tray.” I told her I would never put any food on such a lovely tray, but she and I decided that we loved that it was a bread tray because it reminded us of the feast the Bible talks about us enjoying one day. To us, that tray reminds us that the best is yet to come. 

To me, that was a Jonathan-and-David moment, Mom helping me to find strength in God. Reminding me that I was seen and loved, that I had reason to hope. It was a Pat-waving-at-me-from-the-side-of-the-road moment. Every time I think about it, it brings encouragement to my soul. 

That’s what I hope this blog is for you – a place where you can come in the happy and sad times and find a friend who can help you find strength in God. For even the man who was to become the great King David, the humble shepherd, the giant slayer, the one who was referred to as a man after God’s own heart – if even a man such as he needed that encouragement, we need it too. And what’s more – we can provide that for others. We can be Jonathans. We can be Pats. Waving and smiling, loving and seeing, inviting each other to remember that the best is yet to come.

I love this encouragement from Paul in 2 Corinthians:  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 

If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 

Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us (1:3-10).

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