Recognizing the Jesus in everyone

The summer before my sophomore year of college, I met Jesus in a woman named Lisa. She was sitting in the grass by the curb of a store's parking lot, and I almost drove past her, trying not to make eye contact. The speedup of my heartbeat as I drove toward the stop sign told me I needed to turn back, though, and as I got out of my car and walked toward her, the fear we're taught to feel toward "poor" people beat inside of me, and I had no idea what I was going to do or say.

When I got to her and she looked up at me, her eyes were the clearest blue I've ever seen and tears streamed down her leathered, beautifully lined cheeks. I was surprised she was crying and felt stupid for thinking that I, a 19-year-old girl with $8 folded in my outstretched fist, could solve this woman's pain and problems.

"Are you OK?" I asked, silently berating myself for asking a question with such an obvious answer in a voice that was too cheery. I didn't know what else to say.

She started talking, and I sat down next to her, listening to her struggles and questions she didn't have answers to. I prayed with her and had to laugh at my pride -- I'd thought I'd been praying a great prayer -- when she cut me off halfway through and started talking about an unrelated subject.

She told me about her life, about happenings and decisions that had left her hurting, and questioning if God heard her prayers. She told me of deep spiritual encounters she'd had with God. I told her my hopes and dreams; she told me to hold on to them. She told me about the T-shirt she was wearing that her friend had bought for her as a joke, and we laughed together. It was hot, sweat crawled down my chest and as car after car pulled into the store's parking lot, I realized the hurt of being passed by, the pain of so many people noticing and not wanting you.

"I've never met anyone like you," she said, and that was God speaking to me, because only he would have known that was exactly what I needed to hear, that I was broken and afraid I wasn't enough and that these were the words that could heal me in the places where I needed to be affirmed and loved.

A store worker walked toward us. "I'm so sorry, but I have to ask you to leave," she said when she got to the grass.

Lisa held out her hands for me to pull her up, and I did. As I drove away, I was struck by a sense of being a part of Christ's body that I had never before experienced so fully.

We all are made in the image of God; Let's stand in awe of the utter dignity of every single person. Making no distinctions, let's let the Jesus we carry within ourselves recognize and love the Jesus in every person we meet.  

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Mo., native studying at Truman State University. She loves performing, God and the color purple – not necessarily in that order.