Genesis 18:1-2 The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
I think I spoke with an angel today.
I know I must write this now, while my memory is fresh. Soon, it will begin to fade, bleached by time and circumstance, until all that's left is a moment in time, just a single stitch on the tapestry of my life. The details will be lost in my mind, only to be found somewhere in that space between sleep and wakening.
Already, the edges are beginning to blur. I better hurry...
I stepped off the treadmill at the gym today, and in front of me was a man. He sat hunched in a wheelchair. His body seemed to curl in on itself. His knees looked welded together and almost touched his chest, while his arms and hands stuck out at odd angles. I'd noticed him out of his wheelchair earlier, doing physical therapy on a treadmill nearby, struggling to take each step, as if his mind and his body couldn't agree on where things were supposed to go.
The man was looking up at me. His lips were moving, so I took out my ear buds to hear what he was saying.
"Can you get my glasses for me?" His speech was slow and slurred, as if each word took more effort than his tongue could muster.
"Of course," I replied. The glasses had fallen onto the treadmill. I picked them up and handed them to him. He grasped them with gnarled, uncoordinated fingers and settled them onto his face.
"Thank you," he said.
And here's where the details begin to blur. I can't remember how the conversation began. Did I say something more? Did he ask me a question? Did we introduce ourselves? I can't remember. I know his name was Joseph, and he called me Courtney many times. But when did I learn his name, and he mine? I simply don't know.
What I do know is he began to tell me a story. It began with a dream he had when he was 16 years old. Halfway into the dream, I knew this moment was something special, that I would want to remember everything about this man for as long as possible. I couldn't do that looking down on him, so at some point, I sat down, right on the treadmill where his glasses had fallen. As he spoke, these are the things I noticed.
His eyes were brown and soulful.
The skin on his shoulders was creamy white, as if it had never seen the sun.
His hair fell in soft, short waves around his face. I imagined fingers, once strong and sure, flicking the hair from his face.
He talked with his hands. The movements were awkward and jerky, but somehow they gave his story power.
His dream went something like this...
Sixteen-year-old Joseph was in church - in his words, the house of our Lord, Jesus Christ. I remember those words distinctly. He enunciated them with his broken tongue, making sure I understood. He was a typical teenager at the time. His body and mind had not yet been destroyed by "the accident." In the dream, he wondered why he was in church - there was no wedding, no quinceanera, no baptism. The church was empty. He continued to look around, wondering why he was there all alone. And then he looked down and saw the wheelchair. He was in it.
And his dream was over. He didn't think anything of it. Just a dream, he told himself when he was 16.
Two years later, at age 18, Joseph was at a party with a friend. He and his friend left the party to go smoke a joint. This part was a little hard to understand, but it seems that while they were walking down the street, a 15-year-old kid lost control of a car he wasn't supposed to be driving, and hit Joseph.
His story was over, and neither of us spoke for a moment.
And then he popped the question.
"Do you think God was warning me in my dream?"
I wasn't sure how to respond - to his story, to his question, to any of it! We were at the gym, after all. Questions at the gym are more along the lines of "What are you listening to?" or "Do you know where the weight room is?" Everything was so surreal. I could no longer hear the whir of the treadmills at work around me. Weights stopped their incessant clinking and clanking. Voices faded. It was as if time stood still, and the rest of the world faded into nothingness.
I thought for a moment and said, "God speaks to us in different ways, even in our dreams. But maybe God wasn't warning you. Maybe He was preparing you for His plans for your life."
He nodded.
"Just for a stupid joint," he said.
He sighed.
At the time, I think I knew I was in the presence of something greater than myself, and I was nervous. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to get it right. I knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and I didn't want to say the wrong thing.
"I think God has a plan for you, and I think He has a plan for me," I said. "Our only job is to trust in His plan and follow where He leads us."
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what I said.
The gym came back alive, and we made small talk for a few more minutes. Again, the details are hazy. I know he is now 40 and lives with his mother. He knows that I will be 38 in a week or so, and that I have 3 kids. And then he said it was nice talking to me, we shook hands, and went our separate ways.
And immediately, my mind began throwing questions at me.
Did I really meet an angel?
I'm sure I did.
Did I say the right things?
Umm...I'm pretty sure I did.
Could I have said more?
Probably.
Why would God choose to put an angel in my path today?
I have no idea.
Or maybe I do.
Perhaps He knows I'm faltering, and that I need the reassurance.
Perhaps I was right when I said God speaks to us in different ways. Last night, as I drifted into my own dreamland, I prayed for reassurance for my weakening heart. I prayed for guidance and I prayed for God to speak to me clearly, so I wouldn't misunderstand. I prayed for Him to remind me of the times He's spoken to me and given my heart clear directions, because, Lord God, it's so darn easy to forget.
Perhaps God answered my prayers today.
Just perhaps...
