It’s late Sunday afternoon as I go for a walk.

The April days are already getting longer with light now until almost 8:00. After this winter I am more than ready for a warming sun. But, with the breeze it’s still a little chilly, and since I’m always cold lately I’ve dressed up in scarf, gloves, my old parka.  Ten minutes of brisk walking and I’ve stuffed   hat and scarf into my coat pockets.

A man walks toward me up the road. He’s in shirt sleeves, carrying his jacket over his shoulder nonchalantly. He looks familiar. As we approach one another I recognize him from the food bank. How are you, I ask, adding, What are you doing over here? My words sound pretty nosy and even rude,  but he just grins. He has a beautiful smile. Just visiting some friends, he says. He speaks with a slight stutter I remember. We go on our respective ways past one another.

His name comes to me finally, David. David Something. There have been a lot of Davids over the years at the food bank and a lot of folks whose names I can’t remember. But this one, I do recall. During a really bad time for him, he lived in a tent in the woods, coming out when he needed food and supplies. Usually, he looked disheveled and worn, dirty from being homeless. I’d see him walking around McCall, always with a backpack, the same pack he’d fill with food because he has no car and doesn’t drive. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for months and then he’d show up again, like so many people at the food bank do. Our conversations were always brief and I never knew much about his life.

Seeing him yesterday in my neighborhood made me wonder. He looked good. Perhaps he was doing better and had found a place to live. Maybe he was working and even driving. I couldn’t imagine him walking from McCall to Meadow Creek just to visit friends on a Sunday afternoon. My curiosity about him turned into hope and I finished my walk feeling encouraged.

Later that evening, I remembered something else about David. I remembered that he has come to our church, more than once. Just as he appears and disappears from the food bank, so he’s popped in and out of Mountain Life Church on Sundays. He sits by himself, doesn’t say much   and doesn’t hang around after service. That he comes at all says volumes. David is seeking not only something, but Someone to give him meaning and hope.

This forgotten detail weighs on me now. Yesterday, Pastor Joe had challenged us to invite an unchurched person to Easter Sunday service. I’d been thinking about some friends to invite, you know, women friends who were “safe” and might actually respond. I wasn’t thinking about those whom Jesus holds especially close, the poor and the challenging. Especially not the dirty, homeless ones.

I missed an opportunity yesterday to offer  one of God’s least  much more than a food box. My encounter with David was not by chance. God’s timing never is. The lesson for me is to look past  what is obvious. I pray to  to see with the “eyes of my heart”, with the eyes of Jesus. I pray that He’ll give me a second chance with this young man.

Friede Gabbert