She was black, noticeably older than me, missing several teeth.
I was on the road for a speaking engagement. Like many hotels, the one I was at had an onsite breakfast option. You know the kind – it’s not a restaurant, but they have a room where you can get cereal or pastries or coffee, and sometimes they have *real* food.
This particular day I was at the breakfast buffet early — so early that no one else was around. As I was adding stuff to my tray, though, an African American woman walked in.
“Good morning,” I said.
She responded with something positive like, “Isn’t it, though?”
“Aaaay-men!”
At first, I didn’t notice how she responded. And those of you who know me know that I don’t notice visuals like normal people do. I read body language for crap. But I do hear communication.
I heard her voice brighten as she responded:
“God is good, all the time!…” ...at which point her voice trailed off in a curiously odd way. That caught my attention.
I looked up from the breakfast tray I was filling. Our eyes met. And as I waited for her to finish her sentence, I must have looked puzzled.
She, though, was waiting on me. I could sense anticipation in the awkward little pause. Finally, she smiled her missing-teeth smile and said, almost like a question, “…all the time, God is good?”
The “duh!” moment came in an instant.
There is a worship song whose refrain is just that, a call-response with those very words: “God is good (all the time), All the time (God is good).” She was waiting for me to respond to her “call.”
“Yes, He is!” I finally blurted out in answer to her question.
Now she came into full bloom like a spring flower shaking off the cool morning at it strains toward the sun.
“Are you…” she started to say. She hesitated, presumably cautious because she was on the job.
“Yes, ma’am. I love Jesus,” I replied.
At this, two strangers of opposite sides of the country, opposite gender, color, and economic statuses had “a moment” — a moment beyond words, a moment of, dare I say, communion. It was now her turn.
And she emphatically said, “Amen!”
If there were ever anything such as a holy hug from across a room, this was it — her beaming missing-tooth smile embracing me and me returning the squeeze with mine.
If there was ever any doubt, in that moment doubt was banished in the lived reality that in Christ there is no male or female, now Jew or Gentile, no rich or poor, no black or white. Two people who trust Jesus experiencing what it means to be one, adopted into His family to be His bride, rejoicing and worshipping in a hotel food pantry.
As I and my tray of breakfast exited the food area to look for a table, we parted unmemorable pleasantries, probably offering each other well-wishes for the day. It didn’t matter. In the most unlikely of times and places, I had met one of my sisters.
Some of you will remember that just before Jesus was crucified, He prayed for His disciples and all those who believe in Him that we – you and me, Jew and Gentile, white guy and black woman – that we would be one in perfect unity so that the world would know…that they’d know that God loves us like He loves His Son…that God launched a rescue mission for us all, offering us the free gift of unmerited grace…that it breaks His heart when any one of us turn Him down.
It grieves me that our world is so divided, but it’s also understandable. Because every false worldview deifies something, and if it isn’t Jesus they worship, the consequences will only end up ugly.
But for one brief moment, two unlikely people in an unlikely setting got a glimpse of what He intends for us.
One day I will see my breakfast sister again, and I’ll be ready. I can’t wait to be the first to say, “God is good, all the time!”
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in communications, an award-winning author and speaker, and a passionately bad guitarist. ForTheHope equips on-the-go professionals with biblical principles to engage marketplace relationships with competent humility. On Twitter can follow him @RogerCourville and/or his podcast @JoinForTheHope, or get all updates by email subscription at www.forthehope.org.