I was in the market shopping for dinner a short while ago.

Normally I spend a great deal of time just looking. Not at the food, but the people.

You know it’s the way I am.

I just wasn’t “me” today. I wanted to keep to myself and tunnel my way through the day without too much involvement.

I hate that.

It happens.

I call it tunneling because I dig in early and rarely stick my head out to see what’s going on. Like digging a rut.

That’s it. I was in a rut.

No. That’s too common place. We all get in ruts. This was definitely a tunnel.

I slowly walked through the store as I stayed focused on what I came there for and nothing else.

I got all the way to the very last aisle and it happened.

Someone stuck their nose in the tunnel I created…”How’s your day?”

My eyes darted back and forth a for moment wondering where the voice was coming from.

Then I looked down.

There he was. How dare he break through the wall I created!

“How’s your day?” He said again.

I stood quietly for what felt like an hour and when I heard him say it still another time, I snapped out of it.

I shook my head almost like I had just been punched.

The voice I heard was coming from a young man in a wheel chair.

All of that information, the shock, the disruption smacked me like the kind of jolt I needed to get out of that mood.

“Hello!” I said.

“How’s your day?” He asked now for the forth time.

“Fine,” I replied. “How is your day?”

“You looked like it wasn’t so fine,” he said. “I wanted to see you smile.”

He was right. I was so disconnected that my face was without emotion.

“Thanks,” I said smiling. Then he left.

Okay, so here’s all the obvious stuff you are now expecting me to say.

I was having a bad day. I was thinking about the stuff of my life and suddenly a young boy in a wheelchair appears and helped me to put it all in perspective. If he could have a good day who am I to complain?

Sure. All of that is true.

But here’s really what I want you to know.

As bad as you have it there is always someone worse off than you.

No, that’s not it. That’s not what God said to me in that moment. That’s not the real message I want you to read and accept. This is…

“I love you! How’s your day?”

That’s what God said to me in that very moment in the tunnel, behind the wall I built.”

“So, my friend, I love you! How’s your day?”

Bob Perks traqair@aol.com