"Fountains At The Mall"

We are reading "Radical" in our bible
study at church. Righteous, awesome
read. I highly recommend.

And for reasons now known to me
I went to the mall today. Took the
3-year-old and we were almost
arrested together at the mall.

He was standing somewhere he
apparently was allowed to stand...
on the water fountain...
and the mall authorities asked
me 1) if the boy walking around on the
fountain was with me. (by the way I said
yes, even after I thought about saying no.)
And 2) if I could remove him from
the fountain (again, I almost told the mall cop to ask him himself,
but figured that after what I had just learned I needed to squash that bit
of darkness.)

Back to the mall.

I went to the mall because there are people there.
All kinds of people.
Seriously, all kinds, even at 9:30AM on a Wednesday.

I use to have a professor at IUP who would tell
us to go to the Indiana mall, sit in the center of
the mall, and watch the people. He then would
would say to us, "watch the people, and tell yourself,
'I'm going to be all right.'"

Today, I watched the people at the mall.

And as I sat there I wondered what a person's
story might be... where do they live, work, play,
worship... etc.

What kind of baggage to they carry?
Are they joyful or hurting?

All kinds of different questions went through
my brain concerning different people.

And then I knew why I was at the mall.

Everyone has a different story to tell,
but there was one thing that I did know
about each of them...

God loves them.

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? Romans 10:14-15a NIV

And because He does love me, I don't need the people
at the mall to help understand I'm going to be all right.
But maybe it's time to tell the people at the mall
they can know for sure that they'll be all right too.