Every Thursday night for the past year or so, I meet my friend Laura at Panera's for coffee/deserts, fellowship and bible study. It's always a great time of just Being together with another believer who just gets it and I always leave feeling very refreshed and uplifted. Well a few months back we started noticing this older (somewhat elderly) gentleman who would come into the restaurant, sit down by himself for about ten minutes and then get up and leave. At first we thought he might be waiting for someone who just kept standing him up, but eventually it became quite obvious that he was there alone...and probably just lonely. So we decided the next time we saw him we were going to invite him to join us!
Well tonite we met as usual, and were graced with not only the presence of two other beautiful women of God (we love it when other friends join us), but sure enough we saw this man and invited him over for a bit! His name is Joey, he's 86 years old and he is so sweet! We found out that he lived in Pittsburg for 60 years....that he has three sons, a bunch of grandchildren and three great grandchildren... and that his wife passed away last September 4th, but he still goes and visits her grave every day. But the best part of our short visit with Joey was finding out he loves to sing...and he's good at it! In fact he serenaded our whole table with song...and let me tell you, he went all out, when he was done half the restaurant clapped for him! It was the stuff movies are made of! I felt so privileged to be there and be a part of it!
I'll be honest, when I first thought about the idea of inviting him to join us, it made me nervous....would it be really awkward? would he even want to? But tonite, when I saw Him walk in the door, this nervous excitement came over me.....like I was about to sit with a star...and before I knew it I was over excitedly telling Him to "Come and Sit"! I'm so glad that for once I didn't just keep my mouth shut! I feel like instead of missing out on something special....like I normally would have... I got the chance to be blessed by the very person who we were trying to bless! But I guess that's how blessings work....when you give you always get back more, even when you don't expect it! So here's to Joey....the greatest and boldest 86 year old singer I know in Glastonbury!
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