An elderly man, a widower, lives in our neighborhood close by.  I’ll call him James, but that’s not his real name.  James uses a walker, and even at that can hardly get around.  It is a major effort for him to drag the trash dumpster out to the street for the weekly trash pickup, and it is all he can do to slowly and carefully get into and out of a vehicle.  He doesn’t drive any more…family and friends take him where he needs to go.

 One night last week, I went outside into our front yard just before bedtime.  My wife had told me earlier in the evening that when she came home, James’s garage door was up, and would I check on it later in the evening.  I often go out at that time of night just to get some fresh air and take in the night sky before retiring.  While outside, I noticed that James’s garage door was still up and the garage light was on.  It was about 11:30 at night, so I knew he had already gone to bed.

 I wondered what I could do short of waking him or calling his son (I have the son’s phone number in the event of an emergency).  I knew I couldn’t go inside the garage and push the button to activate the door, then get out before the door closed.  Nor did I have the PIN code that activates the remote opener on the side of the garage door.  The only other thing to do was to release the door from the opener and manually lower the door.  I knew, however, that when I did that, the next time James pushed the activator button, the door wouldn’t open, but rather the opener mechanism would travel to the other end of its range and hopefully re-connect automatically with the door.  And he would wonder what had happened and why it was the way it was.

 Fast forward to the next day.  As I was pulling out of our drive to go on an errand, I noticed a car in James’s drive.  I knew from prior encounters that the car belonged to his grand daughter, who often comes to the house to do minor cleaning and care for her grand dad.  I wanted to say something to a family member about finding the door open and what I did, so I stopped, knocked on the door, and Lisa (again not her name) answered.

 I have visited with Lisa before.  She has not had the best that life has to offer, but is doing what she can to make her way in the world.  She’s had her share of issues in life and living, both within her family as well as in her relationships with others.  I don’t know enough to know what the exact issues are, but I also know that she often helps other family members such as her grandfather, with basic care needs.  I believe she is medically trained as a certified nurse aide.

 We talked for a few minutes about James, his health, etc., and I also told her about the garage door incident, which she said she would report to her uncle, a son who has primary care responsibilities for James.  We visited for a few minutes at the front door, and then I felt the urge to ask her a question.  I said, “Lisa, are you OK?”

 Immediately, her facial expression changed and she started shedding tears, crying.  I felt rather like the typical man, thinking maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to her about that and began to apologize.  She said through her tears that no, it was all right for me to ask.  I asked her if she wanted to talk about it, and she simply said, “No one has ever asked me if I’m OK.”

 I asked, still in kind of a shock and in a fumbling way if there was anything I could do and I think I repeated my request to Lisa that I would be willing to listen if she was willing to talk.  She just told me that she needed strength.  I then asked her about her concept of God, mainly because I couldn’t recall what she had said in prior conversations about that, and she only said, “I know he’s there.”

 I wasn’t sure what to do then, but I knew also that she and I had talked in the past about faith, spirituality, and related topics, that she was receptive to those conversations.  I also told her that I was a minister during those conversations.  So I asked her if I could pray with her, and pray for her later as well.  She readily agreed, and we had a prayer session right there on the front porch.

 She seemed somewhat relieved as I left, and as I got back into my vehicle and went about my business, I thought about that encounter and what it was that made me ask that question.  To this day, I don’t know the answer to that.  I do know, however, that I don’t normally ask that question of others, and am thinking that I may need to ask it a little more often.

 We often say, “How are you?” and expect to hear a “Just fine,” even when things aren’t so fine.  But when we say, “Are you OK?” that for many people portends a different level of interest and demands a more honest answer.  And when we ask the question in that way, we need to be ready as God’s people to do some ministry right then and there…because we never will know just why it was that the person we’re talking with was brought into contact with us, and we’ll likewise never know what the answer will be until we ask.  So, as I found out in asking James’s grand daughter Lisa, we need to be ready for any answer.

 The Bible talks about being ready.  These verses don’t directly address the scenario I was part of, but they do express the principle of always being ready to give a proper response.  In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

 May God continue to bless as you seek out ways to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ.