Don't Judge a Book by its Cover!

I took a several girls from the middle school youth group to the local flea market this past Saturday so that they could sell their handcrafted jewelry and art.  Our space was tucked in between this young couple selling plants and this older woman whose space was filled with stuff that was stacked and strewn in all directions. My first impression of her was not very favorable. She seemed a little gruff to me with customers and slightly agitated in general. 

I was curious about her, so I would look over every now and then to see what she was doing. It was during one of these moments that I heard a portion of a cell phone conversation that she was having regarding a very important matter to her – the abduction of her two beloved dogs. In that conversation she told the person on the other end that she had been praying about the situation.

I have to admit that I thought this woman was a little strange in appearance and manner and trust me, I was judging her accordingly. Putting it bluntly – I didn’t think she was someone I would like to know.  However, there was this one thing that drew me to her space, not her, and it was that she had tons of old jewelry that she was selling. I am always looking for nice beads or pendants, etc., for the girls to use in their jewelry making, so I made my way over to check out her jewelry.

She ended her phone call while I was poking around in the jewelry. I noticed that she still seemed very distraught. [Good news flash - I am glad to know that when push comes to shove, my compassion for the hurting will overcome my hesitancy to engage a “strange” person.]  I asked her what was going on and she explained her dog situation to me in more detail. Because I had heard her say she was praying, I asked her if she was a person of faith - a believer. She immediately said yes, introduced herself as Gloria (there is some irony in that for sure), and we talked a minute about the power of prayer. 

After our short conversation, I moved on to look at more of her jewelry. You have to know this about me: I love order. Gloria’s jewelry, nor anything else she was selling for that matter, was orderly in any way, shape or fashion! I could not resist myself and began to sort her jewelry for her. (Sigh – I love sorting.)

You can see a little of Gloria's space in the background of this photo that I cropped

After a few minutes had passed, Gloria noticed what I was doing and came over to me with more stuff – she was not shy about receiving my help or put out by me not asking her first. As a matter of fact, this is what she shared with me. (I am getting tears in  my eyes as I recall this story). She said that her helper had not shown up that morning and she was thinking that she did not know how she was going to manage getting all her things out by herself - the more stuff out = the more money made and she needed the money.

She proceeded to tell me this story. 

There was a little princess who lived in a castle and she heard a strange noise in the attic. She cried out, “Oh no, it must be a mouse.” She heard the noise again, but this time it was louder. She cried out, “Oh no, it must be a rat! She then prayed and asked God to help her. The next noise she heard was, “Meow.” 

At the end of the story, Gloria explained that God had answered the little girl’s prayer by sending her a cat to take care of the problem. She went on to say, “You are my cat’s meow! God sent you to help me.” I was touched that I was her answered prayer -  just think, I almost missed it. 

I spent a lot of time with Gloria sorting her jewelry and displaying it nicely and I even found a large silver broach that said “Meow." I am not even kidding!  We both laughed when I showed it to her and she immediately pinned it on her shirt. Does God have a sense of humor or what? She was quite the character and we shared stories and laughs for most of the day. She gave small gifts from her things to the girls – including Sara, who could not resist the sorting opportunity either and came over to help me out (like mother, like daughter) - and me. She would say things like, “God told me to give this to you.” 

Gloria was not what I expected or judged her to be.  I am happy that my heart overruled my mind when it came to how I treated her - that I was able to use my "better" judgment, that is my "God's heart" judgment, in this situation.