When we concluded the Gray Line Bus Tour of New Orleans, our guide, Mike Jones said, “If any of your friends give you a free ticket to New Orleans for July or August ask them, ‘What did I do wrong?’ I go to Wisconsin in August to see my nephew Tim.”
Kathy says, “We are from Wisconsin!”
“Did you ever hear of the SAGBRAW bike ride?” Mike asks.
“Why sure. I rode on it two years with my son, Eric.” I grinned widely.
“Did you ever hear of the ‘Bead Man?’” he asked excitedly.
“Yes!” I redounded, “He was always handing out beads when you passed him.”
“That was me!” Mike exclaimed enthusiastically.
There outside the bus as we left each other I ponderer how small a world it is. A bus driver/tour guide from New Orleans riding among 1200 bicyclists was a rider I passed who handed out beads to my friends on the ride through the Northeastern roads of rural Wisconsin. Small world.
I wonder how many people we will meet in heaven who will have touched our lives and we did not know it. God has his own beads that he places on the string of our days. One never knows when, why, or how – but God does. Some of my beads and yours are the same color and the same point on your string and mine. Sometimes we don’t understand why a certain bead is where it is but God does.
God is so amazingly mysterious. How many “bead stories” have you experienced on the your journey?
What do you think of the 6 degrees of separation? Maybe we are closer together than that. We certainly have more in common than many times we are willing to accept.