I Hugged My Uber Driver

It was a routine airport pickup. I had just flown into O’Hare from a trip to Orlando and needed a ride back to Wheaton. Adolfredo from Venezuela was my driver. Ten minutes into the ride after some pleasantries I asked if I could ask him a question. “If you could ask God one question, what would it be?” It took a couple of rounds of back and forth before Adolfredo understood what I was even asking him. Silence. Then he answered, “I would ask God why did my father leave my mother?” Pain, anger, confusion – they were all there in that one question.

I told him how sorry I was for the estrangement this has brought to the family. Why does a married man leave his wife? Jesus has the answer. It is called hardness of heart (Matthew 19:18). The antidote is of course softness of heart.

We talked about the need to forgive his father (not least to free himself from the prison of bitterness). This seemed to hit home because now Adolfredo was punching in Spanish sentences into his smart phone which were translated into English for me to read. A friend of his had sent him a verse from Colossians imploring him to forgive his father. “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Col 3:13).

He had not spoken to his father in a long time. I encouraged him to forgive his father and to call him up telling him that he loved and forgave him.

We reached my destination, and I got out. Adolfredo went and opened the trunk. After retrieving my carry on, we both instinctively wrapped our arms around each other and stood on the street hugging tightly, both sensing the presence of Jesus in our midst.