Good. Now that you’ve clicked on this article, let me preface it by saying that a stranger has never literally vomited on me, but they have vomited their words all over me.
(Don’t quit reading this blog just because no one actually vomited on me.)
Word Vomiter
definition: a stranger who vomits their life story on you
(Don’t look that up in the dictionary because it won’t be there. I made it up.)
You know the people I’m talking about. You’re standing in the aisle at Wal-Mart trying to decide from the forty-five different flavors of Ragu, and you hear someone talking. You ignore it because you assume they’re talking to someone else. You look up, no one is around, and you realize they’re talking to you. They then begin to tell you information (sometimes WAY too much personal information) about the last twenty years of their life. You’re stuck, so you stand there and listen. Please tell me this happens to you, too. Is it just me?
I will never forget the sweet lady I met in the aisle of Wal-Mart. She was in a little scooter. Matted long white hair, glasses on the end of her nose, and a scooter cart full of jello, water, and cat food (my kind of lady!!!). She began to ask me if I knew if the water in her cart was toxic. She went on to explain her son was coming to visit her for the first time in years. She remembered him talking about certain kinds of water being toxic, and she wanted to have the right type of water when he came to visit. I assured her it wasn’t toxic and started to turn and walk away. Realizing she was still talking to me, I let out a quiet sigh, turned around, and right then, she became a word vomiter. She told me a majority of her life story. Her son had been deployed a few times. She hadn’t heard from him in years. She said she sends him gifts all the time, but he never calls or writes. She just talked and talked. Her eyes lit up when she talked about her son, and all she was concerned about was having the right water for him. I tried to listen. I was in a rush, told her I enjoyed our conversation, and I got out of there. I was dealing with problems of my own that day. I didn’t want to hear hers. Oh friend, how foolish of me.
I finished up my shopping, and as I walked to the front of the store, I saw her again. She was hunched over in her scooter talking to another stranger who treated her the same way I did. That’s when it hit me…That’s when I got that gut wrenching guilty feeling. You know what I’m talking about. You want to throw up, and your heart is pounding. I thought to myself “She just needed someone to listen to her talk. I should go talk to her. I don’t have time to deal with her. I can’t handle that today.” I quickly talked myself out of what I know was the Holy Spirit prompting me, and I left. That my friends is called disobedience.
I wish I could tell you a moving story about my time with this sweet lady. I wish I could say I asked her name, prayed with her, and encouraged her. I didn’t. The door was wide open for me to spend time with a lonely elderly woman, and I chose to walk away because I was “too busy” and tired of hearing her talk.
Matthew 25:40(b) … ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’
Just let that verse sink in a little bit.
Hurt people are all around us, and we are too busy to even notice them, or in my case, we walk away from them. We are too focused our own problems, letting our Facebook friends know our every problem via our statuses, without stopping to recognize the needs of strangers (even friends) around us. Talk to the cashier at Wal-Mart, talk to the lady at the make-up counter, talk to the employee at Best Buy, talk to the person behind you in line at the grocery store. Invest in those around you. Next time a word vomiter approaches you, or you realize the vomiting is about to commence, don’t do what I did. Let them vomit on you. Ask their name. Invest. Let God use you. If you don’t, you’ll regret it months later. Trust me.
Great article reminding us all to show compassion to those “word vomiters” and that to disobey the Holy Spirit is a sin…which we are all guilty of sometimes.