Three Couples..

   Three couples made an appearance in my world this morning. As I walked out early, I met our next door neighbors in the parking garage, as they too were out for some early morning exercise. We chatted as we walked, and then they turned and went back around the driveway to begin another loop. I continued out the gate and onto the golf course for my usual stroll.

   As I walked onto the cart path, I saw ahead of me, another couple whom I knew from the other building. I was pretty far behind them, and they were walking the same path, going in the same direction, but they did not look back, so, did not even know that I was behind them. They continued on their way as I turned to walk into a subdivision, and I did not see them again.

   Then as I walked up the street, a man came out of a house, a man that I did not know at all. We said our "good mornings", and he got into his car with his wife (I guess she was his wife, I did not know for sure) and drove away.

   As I finished my walk, and even as I sit here thinking, I realize that, even though I know the names of two of the couples, and have even talked to them on occasion, I know very little about any of the four lives. The other couple I know nothing except a possible last name that I read on their mailbox. But I know they are all individual people.

   People with dreams, cares, joys, sorrows, plans, disappointments, anticipations, aspirations and failures. People with lives that are being lived, each day, perhaps with complete joy and perhaps in quiet desperation.

   Why these thoughts this morning?

   It was not my choosing to bring them into my life on this fall morning. These folks made their own choices to be where they were at this early time. Did God put them each one into that spot at that time for a reason? Was it for them, or was it for me? Was it for both, and did He orchestrate the whole thing? How can it be important if they did not even know it?

   Could it be that God was speaking to me about my attitude toward people in general? People are not a mass of humanity out there. The mass is made up of individuals, each with a name, each with a life, each with all the feelings that I might have.

   They are important to God. He knows and He cares.

   How about me? Do I?