A pierced face looking for a friend.

You just never know what will happen at Starbucks! A young man came over to our table and asked if we would be his friend. My friend and I looked at each other and said sure! We had been talking about what our lives were to be as Christian women in this crazy world. How do you reach out to people anyway? Well, here was this young man with so many face piercings that it made my face hurt looking at him. Actually I have never seen anyone with so many little silver balls covering their cheeks, lips, eyebrows and nose. His hair was in yellow corn rows and he was dressed in all black.



I asked him if he was from our area (thinking surely he wasn't from this small southern town) and he surprised me by telling me he went to the same high school as my son and Jen's daughters. Well, he did until he was kicked out of school. First it was some lame reason and then it was because he had committed a felon. The girl he dated was younger than what she told him. He had no qualms telling us what some would hide. I asked him his name and he said it was Matt but some called him Jesus. That was interesting!



He wanted to know who are children were and at first I hesitated. How wise would it be to give their names to this person I didn't know and couldn't imagine having over for dinner? But it turned out that he was in art class with my friend's daughter. We encouraged him to get his GED to better his life, but he was an artist and showed us the tattoos on his legs. We talked to him for awhile and then it was time for us to go about our normal routines. I wondered what his normal looked like. He had shown us a picture on his cell phone of the money he used to pay his bills earlier. Not quite sure what that was all about. We said our goodbyes and hoped he could find other friends.



As I drove home I wondered if I had missed a great opportunity to ask this young man if he knew Jesus as a friend. Matt seemed lost and lonely but he wasn't afraid to come up to two ladies that were quite different then himself and reach out for friendship. I don't think I would have had the courage to walk up to him. I hope he finds more friends...I hope he meets Jesus!