I woke up with a name clearly formed in my head: Whitney
Oh, I think I remember... wasn't the girl who sat behind me in Pre-Algebra named Whitney?
Whitney Bowles...
Bolles?
I am picturing her vaguely but perhaps she is an amalgamation of the many faces that never solidified into friendships throughout my ever-changing educational landscape. Perpetual new kid didn't lend itself to perpetual friendships, at least, not before social media came along to shrink the world a bit.
"I will have to try to look her up when I get a second. I wonder how she's doing and if everything is okay. I wonder why she's in my head".
Six hours and a lot of busy-ness passed by before the memory of the lodged name reoccurred to me. I had been busy packing suitcases for our short trip to lake country.
'Oh yeah, I was supposed to look her up. I'll get right on that...just as soon as I get the car loaded'
Four hours of driving later, I had still not typed her name into a search bar or searched my groups online for a potential member named Whitney who may need an extra dose of encouragement or something. I'd forgotten again, It was the kind of thing that would probably surface time and again until I at least gave a cursory effort at making sense of waking with a specific name in mind.
We unloaded the car and decided to grab a quick bite before all three local restaurants closed for the night. 10 PM is for city slickers.
"Hello, my name is Whitney and I will be your server tonight."
What the actual heck?
...and so, I made sure to 'people' with Whitney. I made jokes and asked to hear more about the little personal details she let drop- her 5 year old son TJ, her long commute to this job...later, I prayed for her. And I will pray again for her every time this little puzzle dances across my mind, which to be honest, is pretty constant at the moment. That I should pray is the only thing that makes sense in the whole scenario. God must want me to love on and pray for Whitney and now I know where to find her. What's so mysterious about that?
Everything.
