This is a post I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Since before my husband suggested I start the blog, actually. It’s one of the reasons I started really thinking about writing again. In this post, I’m going to describe a situation. This is a real situation, it occurred about six months ago, and it really got me thinking about how little most people pay attention to our surroundings.
At my former work, I would always go out to my car and eat lunch. I’m sitting in the car one day, watching everything around me. Now across the street was a small strip mall, with a fair sized parking lot that was never full. Our parking lot, on the other hand, was always full. So there’s no reason why someone shopping across the street would need to park in our parking lot. Yet, that’s exactly what happened. I watch two gentlemen walk across the street from the strip mall, with plenty of parking, to our parking lot where there were practically no parking spaces. I watched them enter the parking lot, walk down the first row of vehicles (passing at least 10-12 vehicles), and get into the SUV right next to me, on my driver’s side, where I am sitting. They sat there for about 15min or so, just having a conversation. The gentleman on the passenger side, sitting not even three (3) feet from me had his door open. Neither of them had any awareness of any other person’s presence in their vicinity. I finally had to go back in as my lunch was over, and these two still had no idea that I was there! So I opened my driver’s door, got out, and proceeded to lock my car and go back into work. We never exchanged a word. But as I walked away, I heard the man next to me say, “I didn’t even know she was there!”.
This kind of lack of observing our surroundings is a common in our society. It’s also a problem. Today, I want you to think about this situation. What would you have done? How much would you have seen? Would you have seen the person sitting next to you? Or would you have been too oblivious to notice?
I still pray for those men, and others like them. I still hope that maybe that day was a message to them about being aware. I pray that those who don’t look up, and around them begin to open their eyes. The more aware we are, the more we can see is also indicative of being able to spot a problem before it becomes one. Today I pray for you, and hope that you become aware of your surroundings. All of them.
The Warriors Den 