Bartender

It was just a family trip to New Orleans to celebrate my husband's graduation. He'd been working on this graduate school of banking thing for three years and we felt we deserved the break. Entitlement issues. Even when we think we don't have them, they define us. Humanity breaks that way. The room had been paid for for months and we decided to do free things, since money was tight and the cars were in need of repairs. We headed down.

For two days we walked the city, listening to the indigenous music of the streets and tasting the flavors. The air was thick, like the steam off of the morning's first cup of coffee; the tastes were honeysuckle and Abita Amber. The people were friendly, in the way that only New Orleans folk are. They were hospitable, cooking good food, dancing and singing, and looking for their tips. They were not alone. Our son joined in the chorus and came home with his own stash of tips, a completely unplanned yet hilarious, exhilarating and embarrassing happening. Walking the Quarter, wearing my church's youth group t-shirt that had Ephesians 2:8-9 on the back in Greek, I was asked by three different people what it was all about and had the opportunity to share the Gospel with all of them. They never argued, just listened and dialogued with me, sometimes suspicious, sometimes curious, but eventually they went on their way. I never told them they had to accept Christ right there. I felt that seeds were being planted, that the growth was up to the Holy Spirit.

Saturday night, the kids were fast asleep and the husband was getting ready to turn in. Full of thoughts from the two weeks he'd been gone and awake from the heat, I could not wind down, so I headed down to the tiny hotel bar. It was this cute little nook in the hallway, just big enough to stock the best liquor and beer, with three bar chairs pulled up to it. There were dollar bills and foreign currency with notes written on them papering the walls. I plopped down on a bar stool and ordered a Tom Collins.

It was just the bartender and me. I asked about the dollar bills and he said they came from two men who worked the city post-Katrina for five months. They had the heart to just come down from Chicago to stay and work. John, the bartender, sang their praises and the praises of many others. I told him how much we loved New Orleans, how we were from Mississippi and had been down many times and hated what happened to the Mississippi coast as well as New Orleans from Katrina. He put it best when he said "Mississippi was a natural disaster and New Orleans was a man-made one." We discovered a mutual love of James Taylor, and were laughing and talking about the concerts we'd attended. Over JT's music, we united.

John's eyes darkened as he told me of hotel guests who had told him before that New Orleans got what they deserved because of all of the "faggots and drunkards" down there. People who came in and dropped snippets of Christ before him but came to get drunk in his bar and insult his city. I told him that I was a Christian and quite conservative, but that I disagreed strongly with the stance. I shared that the church and the Gospel are about how all of us are equal at the foot of the cross and how there is none righteous (Romans 3:10). If Katrina was a punishment, then it might as well have been a world-wide hurricane. He paused, not sure what to say, and went on...

For whatever reason, this man felt safe telling me what he could not share with other hotel guests. His grief over not recognizing a friend with full-blown AIDS when the epidemic first broke out, the men ailing in the streets of the Quarter; how he and his family had evacuated for the hurricane and everything they had was untouched but everything around them was devastated and lives were changed forever. His skepticism of the church was apparent. And as I listened, and he unloaded, he stood a bit straighter. He seemed apologetic when he told me he was a liberal and I genuinely reassured him that I was more than fine disagreeing and still being friends. He had a gentle nature, and what I sensed was that he just wanted to be heard. So, I heard him. As recently as last year, I would have probably tried proselytize this man and yet the gentle stirrings of the Holy Spirit convinced me to just quietly listen.

At the end of the night, he looked at me and said, "I hope you come back to stay with us. I've never had a good conversation with a conservative before." I laughed and assured him we would meet again, and walked away dazed by how we had connected and how only through Christ I was able to listen to this sweet and burdened man share with me and know that the Holy Spirit moves as He will and that my job for that time was not to push my cart of goods into this man's life. The next morning, I left him a dollar bill in an envelope at the front desk with a note: This conservative loves NOLA and John! We headed out the door to Redeemer PCA, where we were greeted with warm fellowship and beautiful, unabashed worship. We drove home and I cried part of the way, reluctant to leave a city where there was such great darkness, such great opportunity for light to shine.

I'll be back soon... But in the mean time, the Lord has shown me that the reason I do not have these encounters at home is that I live in a cocoon at home, surrounded by grocery lists and errands, chores and laundry. I do not leave my cocoon to share the gift of the Holy Spirit with the many who are in desperate need. I cannot wait to find out how to use my time as my children both enter full-day school this year.

Lord, thank you so much for ministering to ME through the bartender. I am completely and utterly humbled to be reminded that I am but a vessel and you do not have to use me, but you privilege me with the gift of carrying your Gospel forward. I am so undeserving, so NOT entitled to a thing, and yet you have blessed me beyond measure with your Son and His gift of life and redemption. Please keep me moving toward those who need it and always remind me that I need it continually too. Amen

"So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth." 1 Corinthians 3:7