At the laundromat

Once a week we go to the laundromat down the block to do our 4 loads of laundry. (Don't ask me how the 3 of us produce that much stuff!)

Adam has actually been the one doing the laundry for the past several months (Thanks, honey! ). Last week, however, I ventured out to do our laundry there with Katie for the first time. The experience wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be(I was having nightmares about sitting with a toddler for hours waiting for the laundry to finish). Thanks to this laudromat's industrial dryers, however, it only took about 1.5 hours! Katie did wonderfully as well since there was a lot to explore and people to watch. Which is what this post is all about....

About 20 minutes before we were done, a middle-aged man and his father (?) came in. I'm not exactly sure why they were there--I never saw him doing any laundry, maybe he was just visiting the attendant. Nevertheless, within minutes of arriving, he was engaging another woman in a conversation about the gospel. Several things struck me as I observed this interaction.

First, the negative things. This man did not appear to be particularly gifted in interpersonal skills. He seemed a little loud and preachy, and I'm not sure if he ever took time to really listen to the woman to whom he was speaking. These are not insignificant faults, and they are surely areas in which the Lord desires to sanctify all of His children.

Despite this man's weaknesses, however, I walked away from the laundromat, not feeling critical and judgmental, but rather deeply challenged. At one point in the conversation, I heard the man say, "I love Jesus--He is the only thing I want to talk about! I don't care about talking about football or sports or tv. Jesus is all that matters." Here was a man captured by Jesus Christ. Here was also a man who was truly making the most of every opportunity. I, on the other hand, had been sitting at the laundromat for over an hour, surrounded by immortal souls created in the image of God, but had not made one effort towards having a conversation with any of them about eternity. This man, however, recognized the truth C.S. Lewis spoke of in A Weight of Glory:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you may talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare. All day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities it is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal..."

Oh, to walk in light of this reality!