Ryan and I had a Holy Spirit moment last night that I wanted to share with you.
I was really craving a #47 Roly Poly last night after my workout – not just craving, but rather a nagging feeling that I couldn’t shake. I knew that we should probably eat at home, but I convinced Ryan and we went to Roly Poly. We had to hurry since it was close to closing time!
Let me give some back story before going too much farther. We’ve been going to Roly Poly for several years. While the food is very fresh and healthy, we really enjoy seeing the owners. An older Asian couple owns the shop, and the wife is extremely good with names. Every time we walk in she says “Hey, Sam and Ryan!” She is so joyful and kind to everyone. She even knows the exact sandwiches we like and at the end of each meal she brings a candy dish over to us. You might say we go there too much, but really we don’t – she is just that good! Her husband is more quiet, but one day as I was by myself waiting for my order during lunchtime he asked me where I worked. I told him where and what I did and he told me that he used to be a mechanical engineer for Coca Cola! And one evening when Ryan and I went together he happened to be there and he came over and asked Ryan about his job and we all talked together for a long time. I said all that to say that they have done a great job getting to know their customers, but we on the other hand have not done a good job getting to know them.
Back to the story. When we arrived there were new people working and a new woman took our order. As we sat down the Asian woman came over and said how happy she was that we were there that night because it was her last night as owner! Their 5-year lease had run out and they sold the business to these new owners. She thanked us over and over for being such good customers and made us promise that we would give the new people a try. She even gave us a coupon for a free sandwich to make sure we’d come back at least once! We told her how much we would miss her smile and she started to tear up. It was so sad! She disappeared into the back and Ryan and I just sat there, stunned. Even then we still did not know her name (or her husband’s), and now we would never see them again. We were really ashamed of ourselves for missing this opportunity.
But then it struck us that we should get her address so that we could send a thank you card. When we got up to leave she came out to say goodbye, so we asked for her address. As she was writing it down, we noticed that it was the next street over from our house – they lived in our neighborhood! Just a few doors down from us! They’d lived next to us for all these years and we didn’t even know it.
Just think, we could have gone to any other food place or eaten at home and we would have missed this experience. Because of the way all these things happened we know the Holy Spirit led us there for that purpose – this was no coincidence. So now we will definitely have them over for dinner and get to know them!
