Two Minutes

On an errand run to Lexington last week, I ran into Target for a few things I can’t find in my small town.  I found the shortest line and waited my turn to pay.  I listened as the African-American Target employee handed the woman in front of me a receipt and said, “God bless you,” with a smile as big as Christmas.

“How you doin’ baby?” she asked me with an expression that convinced me she cared about my answer.

When I responded and then asked her the same, she said “I’m doing fine, praise the Lord.”

I can’t even remember exactly how our brief exchange went from then on, but there was an abundance of “God bless you” and me being called “baby child.” The whole event lasted under two minutes but it encouraged me for the rest of the day. It felt like a moment when God laid a finger on my heart and said, “I love you.”

Two minutes. I’m not sure I thought it was possible to feel God’s love from a total stranger in the checkout line of Target.

But I did. And it was an authentic touch from the God who is Love.

It made me think differently about those everyday errands I run and those short opportunities I have to connect with someone I don’t know. Not in my own power to be nice or polite, but through the supernatural love that only God can give.