Run-Ins

I remember a while back, my husband and I had an appointment at a preschool to meet our child’s potential teacher and to do an assessment. They want to see if your kid can count plastic bears or say their ABC’s and while doing so, the parents get to sit in kiddy chairs at a kiddy table across from the teacher while they ask you questions about your kid. The whole experience, I thought, was supposed to give you the warm fuzzies about leaving your baby for the first time and help your kid feel excited about counting plastic things and singing songs they hate by the time they get out of diapers.

So we were excited and I had this vision in my head of what a teacher would be like… You know…the apple/ruler pin, cardigan, cute bob, squeaky voice, sleeps at her desk and for a hobby spends time at the library, fresh out of college girl. So, my very tall husband and my not so small derrier sit down on these kiddy seats. And the teacher had her clipboard. So, she was definitely in charge. She was sweet and chatty….but she wasn’t fresh out of college. In fact, right after she asked about allergies, my husband takes a tangent and says, “You look really familiar.”

It is at this point that I am starting to think my husband’s tangent is actually headed somewhere and I am not sure if it is a good idea to go there. She answered that she was at the same school as him decades ago . He squints his eyes at her to guess what she used to look like. She does the same thing and echoes his familiarity. He starts talking about his long hair and speaking of fashion, I change the subject and bring up Doc Martens and grunge clothes…..Alright,
it is here, that I uncomfortably giggle and say, “Oh you probably don’t recognize my husband…he was really crazy in college! Oh Honey, I am sure she has other questions to ask us about our kid.…”

She did and then we shook hands, said nice to meet you and walked outside the school. As soon as the door closed behind us, Rob looked at me and said “I know why she looks familiar!!”  …And then proceeded to tell me some crazy thing this woman did at a house party on a washing machine with someone! What? This is who will be reading Goodnight Moon, doing noodle art and teaching the days of the week to my kid in preschool? Great!  My husband had forgotten this run in from years prior – And now we had a run in, that I had thought would be insignificant or at best warm and fuzzy and include a cardigan.

The next day, both our kids had soccer games and afterwards we went out for donuts with some friends. We were eating gluten fried in lard when this guy comes in with his wife and baby. It was a guy I had a run in with my freshman year. I remember it clearly. He wore white jeans, and in case you were wondering, that was not cool. I met him at a concert the first weekend I moved to college. I was drunk and I don’t think I noticed the fashion sense. I didn’t even know this guy and the next thing you know I found myself in a dorm room doing things I shouldn’t have because a girl who wanted to be loved ran into a boy who wanted something too. As I sat there, I was reminded of the teacher. “Maybe I shouldn’t wear cardigans either”, I thought, as I was expecting to enjoy a maple donut, but instead ran into my own washing machine! (more about how God got me out of the laundry room for another day…)

Life seems to be a series of run-ins that run on and begin to shape who we become. Some run-ins leave us damaged. Some run-ins seem lucky or Divine. Some run-ins chart our course. Others are expected to be insignificant and seemingly mundane…and sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t. Jesus ran into people all the time.

Every time you see Jesus running into people, there was something so mundane, so cardigan like and maple donutish and yet so Divine and life altering.

Every time Jesus ran into people they were never the SAME and He is still running into us everyday! Thank God! Let us keep telling of these run ins with Jesus in the ordinary and extraordinary-because it is in those stories that we will find hope, truth, transformation and life! How is God running into your life? Share here…