You know you’ve reached a low point when you’re sobbing in a Jack In the Box. There’s nothing quite so humiliating as having an emotional breakdown under fluorescent lights while workers in paper hats shout out customers’ order numbers. But there I was.
My high school boyfriend had told me the bad news - he wasn’t coming to California like we had planned. He and I were both set on moving to Los Angeles to attend college. (And here I make public the real reason I chose a college in LA - for a boy. How typically teenager.) Now, he had instead decided to stay in our hometown for a while.
I was crying over the change in plans. I was crying because I wasn’t ready to move to California by myself. I was crying because the idea of having a long-distant relationship was daunting.
In the middle of my cry-fest in the Jack In the Box booth, a voice said, “Excuse me.” I looked up to see an elderly man with kind eyes. “I don’t know you, but I know that God loves you.” Surprised at this unexpected encounter, I blinked away my tears and nodded. He smiled at me and walked away.
His words rang in my ears and heart. Though I had little grasp of God, I knew that this stranger was right. And I felt a surge of peace that came from a place outside of myself.
Much later, when I had a growing consciousness of God’s presence, I recognized that moment in Jack In the Box as one of many times when God had inserted himself into my life like a love letter from an anonymous sender. In my despair and fear, God reached in and told me he loved me. And he used a stranger in a fast food restaurant to tell me.
My high school boyfriend had told me the bad news - he wasn’t coming to California like we had planned. He and I were both set on moving to Los Angeles to attend college. (And here I make public the real reason I chose a college in LA - for a boy. How typically teenager.) Now, he had instead decided to stay in our hometown for a while.
I was crying over the change in plans. I was crying because I wasn’t ready to move to California by myself. I was crying because the idea of having a long-distant relationship was daunting.
In the middle of my cry-fest in the Jack In the Box booth, a voice said, “Excuse me.” I looked up to see an elderly man with kind eyes. “I don’t know you, but I know that God loves you.” Surprised at this unexpected encounter, I blinked away my tears and nodded. He smiled at me and walked away.
His words rang in my ears and heart. Though I had little grasp of God, I knew that this stranger was right. And I felt a surge of peace that came from a place outside of myself.
Much later, when I had a growing consciousness of God’s presence, I recognized that moment in Jack In the Box as one of many times when God had inserted himself into my life like a love letter from an anonymous sender. In my despair and fear, God reached in and told me he loved me. And he used a stranger in a fast food restaurant to tell me.
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