Bus Ride

This morning I got on the bus to head to our morning team prayer meeting. A mother and her adolescent daughter sat down across from me, and it was sweet to hear them talking to eachother. They just really seemed to have a good relationship, and it was obvious that the mother cared a lot for her daughter, and the daughter respected her mom a lot. I overheard the mother asking the daughter if she remembered what stop she needed to get on at to come home later in the day. They got off half way through my ride, and another mother and daughter got on and sat down across from me. The mother's hair was very short and thinning, and she looked very frail, weak, and in pain. The 20-something daughter leaned across to me and said, "Excuse me, do you have any water?" "I'm so sorry, but I don't. I have a banana if you'd like it, but no water." We began to all talk, but the mother's head was down most of the time, like the chemo must be really hitting her hard today. The daughter asked a woman across from us for some water, retrieved the bottle, took out a big pill and gave it to her mom. Her mother must have really needed it, because she drank straight from a stranger's bottle. She struggled to swallow it. "That's a big pill," I said. "It must be really hard to swallow it." I got off the bus on High Street and started crying. "This is the present value of the blood of Jesus," I thought. Right before my very eyes, I saw the huge role reversal that might take place in that adolescent's life in 20 years. I saw a woman in agony from cancer, and a daughter lovingly caring for her, after her mom had taken care of her for so many years. Sometimes the amount of suffering in this world is overwhelming. This morning was a huge reminder to me of how Jesus meets us in the suffering and pain, and He understands (Our morning reading this morning included, "Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him. They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, 'Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?' And they said many things against him, blaspheming him." -Luke 22:63-65). I really don't know how people can get through life without Him, without the promise of a day that's coming where this suffering will be gone (Rev 21:4).