Meet Amber and Alex

I was traveling for work, thinking about everything I still had to do before catching my flight home, when I noticed these folks in my mirror. As I watched them, I noticed these words on the glass:

OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.

And it hit me hard.

It’s so easy to treat people’s struggles like they’re so far away from us. So different. So distant.

We sometimes see them as a long distance problem to be solved, rather than people up close to be loved.

We quietly tell ourselves that their story has nothing to do with ours.

But that just isn’t true.

Most of these good people are much more like you and me than you realize. They're mothers, fathers, spouses, veterans, disabled, depressed, dreamers, and children of God.

So I did what most of you would do.

I pulled over.

Got out.

Started a conversation.

Learned their names.

I had a pocketful of your kindness cards — gift cards for meals — and gave each of them enough for several days. They were deeply grateful.

As I walked away, Alex and Amber kept calling out “thank you” until I reached my rental car.

And that’s the part that stayed with me.

Because they weren’t distant at all.

They weren’t background. They were right there.

Friends, trust me. I’ve treated people like strangers in the distance more times than I’d like to admit. I'm very much a work in progress.

But this movement — your movement — keeps reminding me that these souls, with their needs and their dreams, are much closer than they appear.