Find Your Own Oasis
Oasis: In geography, an oasis is an isolated area in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source, such as a pond or small lake. Oases also provide habitat for animals and even humans if the area is big enough. The location of oases has been of critical importance for trade and transportation routes in desert areas; caravans must travel via oases so that supplies of water and food can be replenished.
Oases are formed from underground rivers or aquifers such as an artesian aquifer, where water can reach the surface naturally by pressure or by man-made wells. Occasional brief thunderstorms provide subterranean water to sustain natural oases. Substrata of impermeable rock and stone can trap water and retain it in pockets, or on long faulting subsurface ridges or volcanic dikes water can collect and percolate to the surface. (Copied from Wikipedia)
In life, if we will look, we will often find an Oasis. As a pastor, finding a place to be quiet, rest, and replenish one’s physical, emotional and spiritual energy is sometimes challenging. And sometimes, you open your eyes and find yourself sitting in an oasis.
Such has been my pleasure over the last weeks. I have lived in Jasper County for nearly three years now. My family has really enjoyed our time here. I have had very few opportunities to travel to or through Social Circle. I know where it is, I know it is the home for the famous Blue Willow Inn and I have passed through on occasion.
However, over the last few weeks my work and life have carried me to Social Circle on a frequent basis. My wife’s family lives outside of Winder, GA. So we traveled through for the holidays visiting family. And as a pastor, I have had two persons related to the ministry of our church as patients of the Abby Hospice located in Social Circle.
For months prior to all of this, I have had Hot Rods show up as an ad on my social media account. I noticed it, made a comment or two about how we ought to stop in sometime. And over the holidays we finally did. Our experience was one of being welcomed, made to feel at home and served good food. And over the next few weeks I found myself stopping in over and over as life took me past the diner.
What I want to communicate is this: Greg and Lisa Cavender opened the diner in 2013. According to an article written at that time they opened the diner with service as their focus. “I love people, giving them southern hospitality and making them feel at home” Lisa is quoted saying in an article in the Walton Tribune (May 8, 2013).
As I visited over and over, I found a warm friendly greeting, good food and a place to rest, relax, collect my thoughts – an oasis. What the owners and staff have no idea about is – they gave me more than a meal. They provide a place to spend time with my family as we traveled back and forth from family events, including the failing heath and subsequent death of my wife’s grandmother. A place for me to collect myself as I visited with persons and families facing dying and death. A place to let my spirit, my mind, my being to prepare to re-enter the world. And it was what I needed.
What I am saying is we each move though each day, doing whatever it is we do – and we never know what a gift it may be to those we encounter. So whatever you do, do it with a focus on kindness, on hospitality, on service. And you may be giving a blessing to someone that really needs it and you often have no idea.
I am thankful to find a place to refresh, recharge, recover – and enjoy good food. I am thankful that in the demanding and draining place in my life I found an oasis. May you find your own oasis in your time of need.