There’s a lot of bad in the world today. More than what most people realize or want to think about. It’s not a pleasant thing to think about and a lot easier to just ignore or pretend it isn’t there. While sitting at the truckstop today, I was awake and didn’t want to wake Pops so I sat in the front seat and quietly read my book. I noticed a woman in the side mirrors and she was walking around from truck to truck talking with some of the drivers. I understood at once what was going on. Eventually she disappeared for awhile and then later was back to walking around newer arriving trucks. She stopped at our truck once and saw me watching her and moved on. She looked neatly dressed, common, probably around 40 years of age. She wasn’t a bad looking woman at all, and not flashy or trashy either. I could no longer concentrate on my reading. My mind begin to wonder about her. And also about the men who invite her into their trucks. It was disturbing. It upset me a whole lot. I was sad. I was angry. I had pity for the circumstances that made her feel like this was all there was. My emotions were a mess.
We got a dispatch leaving a small town in North Carolina and going to Decatur, Ill. I woke up Pops and we got moving. It was still my turn to drive for about another hour and a half so he helped me back out of the spot and away we went. We hadn’t even got to the end of the block when we were flagged down by a man. He was dressed in what appeared to be some sort of work uniform with his shirt tucked in and he was very dirty. He asked us if he could polish our wheels. Pops told him that we had to leave now we were on a dispatch. He then asked us for a cigarette. He looked very disappointed when Pops told him that neither of us were smokers.
So…in one little truckstop parking lot two very different yet sad lives touched my feelings in a way that you probably can’t imagine. What could have brought these two people to live like this? Did they have families? Have they ever heard of Jesus? What wrong choices did they make along life’s pathway? Who could have made a difference? As I wondered and thought about all of that I wondered what I might have done if anything to let them see God at work?
The group Casting Crowns has a very good song out now called: “Slow Fade.” It kind of made me think about all of this. We all make wrong choices. We all at one time or another took a wrong turn, deliberately or otherwise. How come we are so quick to judge the wrong turns of others? How many wrong turns does it take to spiral into a mess? The chorus to the above song goes like this: It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away. It’s a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray. Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid when you give yourself away. People never crumble in a day. It’s a slow fade.
A very good friend of ours, Chad Fatula has recently posted a lesson on his blog about living Inside Out. It is a very good lesson and should be read by everyone so I am promoting his blog to you now through ours. Check it out. Start living your life Inside Out whenever you can.
posted by Chad at The Hot Spot - 1 week ago
Today’s post is from what is commonly called “The Eight Woes.” This would be the 5th Woe. I personally find this to be among some of the most serious scriptures in God’s Word. I put this up there w...
So it’s back up North for us again. Anyone got a jacket I can borrow?
Written October 19, 2010
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