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Angels All Around Us
God is
everywhere, even
at the DMV.
Jackie and I met in a Bible study class at the Alexander YMCA on Hillsborough Street. We got to be friends, and I had served as her champion with Jobs For Life, a program to help people find stable, long-term employment. Jackie is a single mom on disability who battles sickle cell disease. She has been homeless in the past and cares for her 9-year-old granddaughter and her 21-year-old- son. She is a survivor. I really love Jackie. After she graduated from Jobs for Life, she worked and saved for a year to get her driver’s license. I took her to the Division of Motor Vehicles office on Avent Ferry Road three times before she was finally able to pass both the written and driving test. The lady at the DMV was so generous and recognized us each day as we tried and tried again. (The second time she was unable to drive my car for the test because the registration was
expired — oops.) After the third try, the DMV worker said she could see something special between us and that she saw angels all around us. Not the typical conversation you expect while obtaining a license, but God shows his glory in extraordinary ways, even through ordinary people like Jackie and me. Unlike Paul’s transformation, though, my awakening to what God wants me to do has been somewhat slow. In his book Everybody, Always, Bob Goff writes: “Do you want to do something amazing for God? Trade the appearance of being close to God for the power of actually being close to God. Quit talking a big game and go live a big faith. We need to live a life worthy of the calling we’ve received. The call is to love God and the people around us while we live into the most authentic version of ourselves!” This spoke to me because my awakening came about as I got to know myself better. I stopped pretending to be the things
I thought I should be growing up — or what people expected or wanted me to be — and I started trying to be who God made me to be. I started paying attention to what delighted me, what filled me with purpose, what fired my imagination, what drew me closer to God. And then I up and quit my job and started doing those things. I had worked as an interior designer and built up my own business over a 15-year span. I loved my job, thought I was pretty good at it and was thankful I could use my creativity and strengths in my day-today work. But I started to feel restless and unfulfilled. I looked around and realized almost everyone in all of my circles was just like me — the same color skin as me, the same background as mine. I felt Jesus working to pry open my neat little life in what felt like calling me out of my tomb like Lazarus. I joined Manna, an interracial Bible Study
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