This morning at church, as I was worshipping, an elderly man in his sixties or seventies caught my attention. He had a small build with a bit of a hunch back and his hands were clasped and his eyes closed. I don’t know how he caught my attention as he was on the other side of the church from where I was sitting. As I watched him, at first I had a smile on my face, I began to feel sad without understanding why. As worship continued, the sadness grew more and before i knew it, tears were rolling down my face, my eyes fixated on this little old man who was sitting by himself. I began to wonder why I was sad, I wasn’t sad for me, but I was sad for him, but why? I was hoping the feeling would subside but it didn’t, so as worship continued I was convicted to move to him to tell him that God Loves him. He spoke no english and I spoke no Romanian, it was just a simple gesture of pointing to God, touching his heart and pointing at him. He smiled and held my hand. As we were walking back from church, I still felt there was an unfinished conversation to be had as the sadness still lingered within me, and not knowing why. I found out that he lived 2 houses down from Abi and Lily (the couple’s house whom we are staying at) and so in the afternoon, I asked Alex, Abi’s daughter who is also our translator to come with me to visit this gentleman.
Through our conversation, I found out His name is Lazard but the community calls him Pappy, his wife had passed away several years ago, he has 2 sons and one of his son got married and never returned home or calls him so he doesn’t know where he is or how to reach him. The other son lives close to him and he has a grandson whom he adores but he doesn’t see them often. When I asked him what I could pray for him for, he said in a sad voice that he just wants his boy to come home. He also has trouble seeing. God wanted me to tell him that He loves him very much and has not forgotten about him, through his pain of waiting for his son to come home and for the grievances of losing his wife. He held my hands and we just sat on the bench outside his house watching people walk by and cars pass by. He told Alex to tell me that he will pray for God to bless me and I reciprocated the same message. He continued to hold my hands like a grandfather would to a child and we just sat on the bench looking at the street.
I now understand why I felt sadness the whole day for Pappy and it still overwhelms me a little that I was somehow connected to his sadness. God connects us to people and gives us compassion and emotions for people for a reason, but if we don’t respond with those feelings of compassion or act on them, we don’t get to see the fruit of those emotions or promptings. When God moves you to talk to someone, you can wait and hope that the feeling goes away, but you will come to a decision point of responding or retreating from the invitation. If you respond, it feels darn awkward but the reward is fruitful. If you retreat you miss an amazing opportunity to see what God can do.
