Tara

"I was hoping I would get to meet you!" 

Those were the first words out of Tara's mouth when she walked into the kitchen at the summer feeding program, sometime around late June/early July. I had been working as a substitute server in the program in my first summer as a cafeteria staffer, so I had been there off and on, but I didn't feel like the rest of the staff really knew much about me. They were still asking who I was when I'd walk in the back door. 

So when Tara said those words, I immediately started wondering what kind of rumors were going around about me. Who was talking? Was it good or bad? It must have been good, since she seemed excited, but who was it? Who knew me well enough to be saying anything at all?

Tara went on to explain that she had been bringing her family by the program for lunch off and on for the early part of the summer, and I had "always been so nice" to all of them. She knew she was coming in to work the second half of the summer and hoped that I would still be there, hoped that we'd get a chance to actually meet. 

Now, here we were. 

I hear those words a lot in my life - that I'm always so nice. That I'm friendly. That others sense that I'm really engaged with them and that I'm truly offering my service on their behalf. The truth is, I'm nice to everyone. I don't see a reason to be any other way. Even if I'm having a bad day; that's not your fault, so why should you pay the price for it? 

But what Tara didn't know was that here I was, in a food service position just a year after graduating with my Master's degree, unable to find a job in my field, taking the only job I could find that would give me my Sundays off for ministry, still unknown by most of the others in the department, still being evaluated and judged by the members of my own kitchen when the school year ended, serving a population of students who didn't know my name and probably didn't care to...and I was feeling so small and so invisible. 

Then, in comes Tara, someone I had never met...(remember, I do not recognize faces)...and she may not have known my name, but she knew exactly who I was. She had noticed me, had noticed something about me, had recognized something about me, and she was eager to tell me about it. 

Friends, those kinds of moments make all the difference. All the difference. 

I'm still nice to everyone; I still can't think of a reason not to be. But I think of that moment often, that very excited, almost-ambush kind of moment when someone couldn't wait to tell me that they saw me, that I made a difference somewhere...and I look for my opportunities to offer those kinds of moments to someone else. 

Our world is filled with folks who feel invisible. Folks who are just going about their day, sometimes in places they never dreamed they would be. Folks doing the best they can with the opportunities they've been given. Folks who feel like no one even notices them. 

Folks who need a Tara. Someone to just come running up and say, "Oh my gosh! It's YOU! I was so hoping I'd get the chance to meet you!" 

Someone who says, "I see you. I've been seeing you. And you're awesome." 

Yeah, I want to be that someone.