Tokens, Shoes and Sisters

I was coming back from a pre-employment appointment at Denver Health when I ran into two women at the bus stop. They had both come from the dental clinic and were discussing their teeth. One asked me if she could exchange a dollar with me for her bus tokens. She explained she wanted to get some lunch and needed some cash. I did the exchange and we got to talking. She had a Bible next to her and she and the other woman started to discuss the discontinuation of pennies and whether we were reverting to a non-cash system. The first woman said that it was a sign of the End Times. She cited the clash in the Middle East as further proof. Later the conversation switched to the second woman's shoes she bought on sale.

From their initial conversation about going to the dentist to get low cost dental care, I realized that they lived each day struggling to get by and here I was, a recent graduate starting her medical career. We came from two different worlds. One woman was enrolled in a vocational school while I was looking toward going to medical school. The other rode the busses at night for a safe place to sleep. Yet we were all united as sisters in Christ. I thought about the sisters that lived in yet other parts of society - Marylin Musgrave, Condolezza Rice, unnamed sisters in Christ who ran companies and were already doctors, pharmicists, scientists, and engineers. Sisters in other parts of the world. This thought broke down any barriers I had to talking with them or any prejudgemental thought I had about them. We were just three sisters chatting about the economy, shoes, bus tokens, and the world at large.

One day, all of my and my sisters in Christ's identities as vocational student, graduate, medical student, doctor, pharmacists, engineer, buisnesswoman, politician, etc. will be stripped away. All of us sisters - those I met at the bus today, as well as sisters from all walks of life in all nations will unite with our Beloved, our Father, our Savior in Heaven. We will have that shared identity, and more importantly, an even stronger bond of unity there, because no class or race or nationality will separate us.