Impacted by the Unnoticed

While reading in Matthew this morning my wheels started turning. A while back, maybe a year maybe longer, I visited a church that I had visited a few times before. With the way we travel and all the states we’ve been through in the past few years there’s no way to guess which church.
But anyway, the first two times I went to this church there was always this elder lady who sat alone on the back row and went out of her way to welcome me, tell me how thankful she was that I was there, and how beautiful my kids were, (complimenting my kids will win me over real quick.) I’m always nervous walking into a new church and she always had a way of making me feel much more comfortable.
The third time I visited this church I walked in a little late and there she was sitting alone in the back just worshipping her heart out as she had the times before, seemingly unnoticed by the rest of the congregation. I sat my purse down on her pew and ushered my kids in, this was our first time sitting with her, the times before we had sat a few rows in front of her. She seemed so happy to have us on her pew. After church she hugged my neck and we talked for maybe 1-2 minutes about where I’m from and what I was doing in town. After she walked off I had another lady approach me that was closer to my age, she immediately said something along the lines of “I apologize if you smelled urine or felt awkward when that lady hemmed you up. When you’re here you’re always welcome to sit with me up front. The poor lady you sat with tonight always smells and isn’t all the way there, she tends to stick to herself” I was slightly speechless, I told her thank you and that there was no reason to apologize.
I felt sorry for the elder, she hadn’t hemmed me up, I never smelt anything, and she seemed in her right mind each time we spoke. I think of her often even though I don’t know anything about her, not even her name. I’m honestly not sure I would even recognize her if I seen her on the street today.

Anywho, back to me reading Matthew this morning, while reading I thought of this elder again. When John the Baptist is first introduced in Matthew it tells of him coming out of the wilderness, wearing camels hair, drinking wild honey, and eating locusts. Y’all this guy was eating bugs, yet he was the very one Jesus chose to baptize him. Don’t you think someone should have told Jesus “hey before this man baptizes you I think you should know that he just walked out of the woods EATING A LOCUST,” or do you think Jesus knew what he was doing when he asked John the Baptist to baptize him? I’m pretty sure our all knowing father knew every detail about the man he was speaking to and still chose him.
It isn’t our place to tell every fault/difference we think we see in others, their differences may be the very reason Jesus chooses them for a greater purpose.
We are called to be the salt & light of the earth and to love one another yet we get so caught up in being salty and casting shade on people who we don’t think quite fit our definition of normal. I’m definitely guilty. It hit me like a ton of bricks this morning.

Can’t help but smile when I think that if Jesus was standing here needing to be baptized in this day and age that he would pick someone like that little elder to do it. The one who was somewhat of a loner and didn’t quite live up to other people’s definition of normal, the one who wasn’t quite like all the others but still went out of her way to love me & mine, the one who had more of an impact on my life than she will ever know.