in high school, i worked at sunmart, the local grocery store. i worked there because all of my friends worked there. every week we would give any time off requests we had to darby, who was in charge of making the schedules. and every week i would ask for sundays off.once or twice i would forget to submit my request to have sunday off and it seemed that i would inevitably be working that day. i don't know if darby didn't catch on that i didn't like working sundays or if he was just glad to have a someone to schedule that day so someone could have it off, but whatever the reason, i occasionally worked a sunday.
one day i came in after church and was talking with the wife beater. i don't remember his real name, but that's what a couple of girls who hung out with us called him, because, as they superficially judged him, he looked like some guy who would beat his wife: he had shaggy hair and drove an old brown car from the seventies. frankly, i think he looked kind of like ashton kutcher from "that seventies show", but whatever. he was a few grades below me in school and was actually a really nice guy. i liked him.
anyway, i came in and was talking with the wife beater (i think his name may have been jesse). not wanting to sound all churchy but still not happy with having to work on the sabbath, i commented to him that, "i don't know why, but i just feel weird working today."
with matter-of-factness, the wife beater replied, "i think that's because sunday is a sacred day and we're supposed to keep it holy."
"um, yeah, me, too."
well said.
4 comments:
whoa.
Mee tooo! I get humbled all the time by people who aren't of my faith, yet are more confdent in expressing their morality.
It's hard to draw the line sometimes between being self-righteous and being a witness of truth and goodness. Too often, I think I err on the side of caution because there are always those people that take offense no matter how you mean it...but times like this ^ make me realize just how powerful the truth is. Mr. Beater showed immense faith in you to share that belief with you, I think. Why are we so afraid of including people in the assumption that there are "good" things in life to be striven for? Even if we don't believe in the same religious doctrine, everyone has an innate sense of morality or decency (whatever you want to call it) and I think we honor them when we recognize that.
i like it.
and for some reason, as i finished reading this, i got to the bottom where it says "made by jeff" and i read it "mumbled by jeff". i think in this case, that fits just as well. : )
2 tim 1:8
(though i know you aren't 'ashamed' at all, and were just trying to be sensitive to him, it's funny what we can learn when we aren't as bold as we could be in our testimonies at times. i've been there, too. we all have)
See? We should listen to scraggly people more often!
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