An Unlikely Place

I'm not sure why, but I've been thinking about this moment a lot lately.

When Caleb was just over a year old we were grocery shopping one day. I know he was a little over a year because he was able to sit up independently, but only for very short periods of time, and certainly not in a moving shopping cart. So I had him in our handy-dandy "Buggy Bag" - a shopping cart cover that has about an inch of padding throughout and came with a pillow (truly a life-saver for us). We always received comments on it, because to the untrained eye Caleb always looked like he was just resting.

As I got to the juice/egg isle, a man wearing a tattered, paint-splattered T-shirt and an old, worn baseball cap made a comment about how great the cover was. He had two children with him, around 2 and 4 years old, and said his wife was at home with their newborn, and gosh that would be a great little contraption for them to get. That point in the conversation was when I would usually just agree and be on my way. But this particular time a little birdie told me to share a little more about why this contraption had been so great for us. So I explained that Caleb had muscular dystrophy, so it had really helped us out a lot in our day-to-day lives.

With this comment I half expected the man to run away, but instead he asked me more about Caleb's condition, what was going on with his muscles, etc. I probably didn't have all the right answers since this was before we actually got a diagnosis - Jeff and I had decided early on that the term "Muscular Dystrophy" was something the general public was familiar enough with that they would be able to at least wrap their brains around the fact that his condition was not something he would simply "outgrow".

After chatting for a few minutes, this man asked me if I believed in prayer. I responded, "Yes, I truly believe that all the prayers and positive energy have helped get him as far as he's come." He then told me he was a pastor at such-and-such church, and would I mind if he said a prayer for Caleb? "Of course not," was my response, expecting him to go home and include Caleb in his prayers. But to my surprise, he laid his hands on Caleb's head in the middle of the juice isle.

The words that came from this man's lips sounded as if he had known our family for years. He asked God to give my little boy strength, not only in his muscles, but to have the strength and wisdom to find his path and purpose in life. He talked about how he sensed great things from this little boy, and a deep ability to touch people's hearts. He said all the things a mother unsure of her son's future needed to hear within a few short minutes.

As I stood there with tears streaming down my face, surrounded by juice, eggs and yogurt, with a man in tattered clothing, and two young kids squawking in the background, I have never felt closer to God. It was such a beautiful moment in such an unlikely place... a moment that I will cherish for a lifetime.