Monday, March 23, 2015

God's Bait and Switch.













Tonight after all the kids I was chaperoning were safely tucked into their rooms I decided to go back to the lobby and get a diet coke. The store was closed and the concierge told me there is not one drink machine in the entire building. I would have to leave the building, which I did not want to do. So I went to the bar to get a diet coke, hoping no one would see me and attach more nefarious assumptions to why I was sitting at the bar alone late on a Monday night in a hotel far from home. As I waited, and waited and waited, I began to realize that the ten or so folks at the bar around me all had empty glasses and had not drank a drop since I sat down. About this time an older gentleman approached me and asked for me to take a picture of him and an incredibly elderly lady with an old style Kodak disposable camera. He apologized for the camera and offered to show me how to use it if I would be so kind as to take the picture.
I laughed because out of all the people in this bar, I was the one he picked, as I spent my first 2-3 years of band photography using disposables. So I said sure and he motioned to the lady. At this point she turns to him and begins adjusting his tie, his scarf,  his lapels, his everything. He looks at me sort of sheepishly and shrugged at which point I started laughing and said, "you know, there are times when it just can't be anything less than perfection." She is nodding and saying yes, yes over and over again, and he starts laughing too. So as I stood there, watching this lovely little lady with a glorious head of silver hair and lines beyond count on her face lovingly fussing over this gentleman, it began to dawn on me that maybe I was not down here in the lobby of this hotel in the middle of the night for what I thought. Maybe God has me here for something else.
 So I watched and smiled and counted them down for the picture. They were both very grateful and gracious although she never said anything other  than yes, yes. I do not think she spoke English much. 
It then occurred to me that maybe I could do more. I offered to take a picture with my phone and message it to him. His face lit up and he turned and explained it to the little lady. There were some more yes, yeses, and some nodding on her part. The part that I loved so much was when he told her, "now it won't take two weeks for me to send the pictures to you." In that moment I realized I could give them this tiny little gift that I take for granted every day, a simple picture that brings instant gratification unlike back when I used disposables for the band. Who were they? Were they in this hotel meeting and soon to part for who knows how long? The picture was very important to both of them. In the grander, bigger scheme of things I take thousands of photos for parents, families and friends of school kids who rarely have to wait very long for them and yet these two lovely people were going to have to wait two weeks or so for these to be developed and mailed. 
I thought I went downstairs for a coke, but really, God sent me downstairs to give a gift to two people who will soon be parted, so they could hold on to this one moment in time until the other moments are developed and mailed. 
I didn't go back upstairs with a diet coke but I did go back upstairs blessed. Thanks, God.