Favorites

We always have favorites in life - my favorite ice cream is chocolate, my favorite colour is blue, and my favorite season is fall. We're not necessarily supposed to have favorite people in life - everyone should be treated equally, but there are always those who work their way into our hearts just a little more than others. At The Mustard Seed, Gary is Minnie's favorite, as she is always watching for him to come through the door so she can help serve him (he is a senior and walks with a cane). My favorite is Sheldon. I have always believe that God speaks through dreams, and Sheldon was first introduced to me in a dream, not long after I started my work downtown. He was the one familiar face in a lineup of people in a dream I had one night, and I didn't even know him then. I began talking to him shortly before we had the fire, and then he became a source of comfort throughout the winter as I struggled to keep it all together (who knows if I succeeded - sometimes I still don't feel all together). I have been bugging Sheldon to sing karaoke for months, and last night as we were cleaning up the coffee bar I heard a different voice to an old familiar song and I had to pop out to see who was singing, because it was a good voice. I looked towards the front of the church and there stood Sheldon, in a white t-shirt (he rarely takes off his coat), singing his guts out. It was just one of those moments where you see these people in a different light - they aren't homeless or poor or down on their luck, they're just people, made in God's image like the 6 billion others roaming around on this planet, doing the best they can with the life they were given. I drove home wondering about all the people we cross paths with every day, and why there are some that we pause to reflect about, and there must be a Plan in place, and we have to follow those ebbs and flows and maybe someday He'll reveal how it was all part of the Master Design. But for now, I'll just wait for that revelation and enjoy my time with these people that I now care about so much.