Last week I wrote about all the questions I have for which I have no answers. I know that post was screaming hurt and wounds. I don’t know if it was wise to publicize all my questions. But I wanted to be honest about where I am because I know some of you are asking the same questions.

I often feel as though my questions invalidate me from being an acceptable Christian. I know God accepts my questions because Jesus welcomed them. However, the religious environments in which I’ve participated since childhood discourage such questions to the point of doubting one’s faith. Words like divisive and heretic get thrown around.

A shopping trip to Target today made me refocus and reconsider the way I view my questioning:

I meandered up and down aisle after aisle of the toy section, trying to figure out what’s cool and what’s not for the nieces and nephews. My girls no longer ask for toys for Christmas gifts, so I’m out of the toy loop. As I rounded one of the aisles, I saw a lady out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing a toboggan, but was obviously bald. She appeared to be deliberating over a puzzle, and I wondered if she had cancer. I wondered if she was, perhaps, buying gifts for her own children.

I moved on, but a few minutes later as I stood staring at baby dolls, the lady walked into the same aisle. I scooted past her, and as I did, I loudly and clearly heard, Pray for her.

Huh? Me? What? Pray for her? A stranger? In the baby doll aisle of Target?

I started praying silently as I pushed my cart down the aisle, but I knew I wasn’t being obedient.

A couple of aisles over and a few minutes later, I saw her again.

Same thing, again loud and clear: Pray for her.

I absentmindedly picked up a box of trains and stared at it as I replied to Holy Spirit: I am. But to walk up to a total stranger in Target and ask if I can pray for her, well, that’s weird. No, thank you.

I tossed the trains in my cart and inched my way down the aisle. I saw she was leaving the toy section. I felt part relief and part regret. I considered catching up to her, but justified not doing so by reminding myself that I still had toys to peruse and select.

I tried to pray for her, but instead, I found myself rapidly firing excuses at God: Who am I to pray for a total stranger? I don’t have this Christian thing figured out. I’m not a prayer warrior. For the love, I have questions most people either don’t have or won’t verbalize. What if I’d prayed for her and started crying (’cause I can shed a tear at the drop of a hat these days)?…She’d have thought me insane!

But you know what? The truth is…I missed a chance to love like Jesus. I missed a chance to let go of all my questions for a minute and just love a stranger. I missed an opportunity to be a blessing to someone who may have needed it. And I missed an opportunity to be a complete stranger relying on and relaying grace without the attached religious labels of too much or not enough.

My heart and mind were brought back to focus on this today: we need each other right where we are. In our questioning. In our sickness. In our religious wonderings and wanderings. In the middle of the toy section in Target.

I need you. And you need me. I’ll be the first to tell you how difficult it is for me to write those words…and to believe them. I like to believe I don’t need anybody. And it’s hard for me to comprehend that anybody might possibly need me…with my questions and my wounds and my over-thinking and my not-yet-healed-and-scarred-over wounds. But maybe those are the very things somebody needs to see and hear from me at such a time as this.

I needed the lady hiding her bald head today. And my guess is that while she may not have known it, she needed me too. I’m sorry I didn’t stop and obey the voice that always leads me in the way of grace.

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Note…morning of December 12: I finished writing this post late last night. Just before going to bed, I read the daily devotion from Grace for the Moment by Max Lucado, which I normally read every morning. However, yesterday morning was full of commotion, and I neglected to take a moment to read. So when I read it, after finishing this post, I was overwhelmed with gratitude at the way God speaks and prepares us for second chances…