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The Ask-me Girl

The Ask-me Girl

I work as a public relations assistant at a community college. Our college is small (only a few thousand students), so my job varies depending on the need. Basically, I do anything my boss (one of the vice presidents) asks me to do. On the first day of class this semester, my boss asked me if I would mind helping out down at the information center. I gladly agreed. My task for the first few days of classes was to help students find the direction to their classes.

I had to wear a sign around my neck that read "ASK ME" and while I answered all types of questions, a lot were the same. “Where is Godbey 178, or Godbey 102?”

The building I work in (Godbey Hall) is numbered in a completely illogical manner. There is really no rhyme or reason to the scheme, but for some bureaucratic reason, it cannot be renumbered. So the end result is confused students, which means I was standing in the hallway by the main entrance wearing an ASK ME sign and answering questions.

I became the ASK-ME GIRL.

Now, not everyone asked me for help. Some people (faculty and staff included) walked by and asked me random questions, poking fun at the sign I wore. Others looked lost, but when I offered the help, they refused, determined to be independent and find it on their own. Sometimes people would tell me they knew where they were going, would walk one way, and five minutes later I would see them walking the other way. Yet they still refused help. And then there are the people who have been students here for a while who don’t need the help. They see me, and though they might have asked me once upon a time for help, they are now set. They know where they are going and so they go about their way.

This experience brought to me the idea of what it must be like to be God. People everywhere in life are searching for direction. They want to know what they should do with their lives. They don’t have a map and they are looking for that one room, which contains the meaning and purpose of life.

God knows all the answers, so if I’m the ASK-ME GIRL, then God— being bigger— is the ASK-ME GOD.

Yet how many people in life treat God the same way the people here treated me. Some ask random questions, and God can help, but they miss the point about asking the main question: how do they find the way? Others make fun and ridicule. They might try to trick God or even humor Him with their life, but they don’t take Him seriously. Still others refuse to take the help God offers as they insist upon living life their way by their plan. They are lost, and they may even have heard there is someone with some answers, but they insist upon doing it their own way. They strive to find that room on their own, even if it costs them everything.

And then there are the ones who know who God is. They at one time asked Him for directions to the room and He gave it to them. They know their way to the special place, and now they are just living life; they see God as they pass by and smile.

But there was one last group of students that I interacted with those few days. These were the students that not only knew where they were going, but they helped others get there as well. They would stop to introduce a new student to me, but then they would go that extra last step to make it personal. They would go somewhere with the new person— together, following my instructions. They were the guides to that searched-for room.

This is the group I think God most wants us to be like. I think He wants us to introduce others to Him, and then go with them on the process. He wants us to acknowledge Him, seek Him for the directions, and then live out the directions that He has given us— together. Helping others get to that special room.

[Wendy Chinn is a part-time PR assistant for New River Community College in Dublin, Virginia. She and her husband David also serve as campus staff with Great Commission Ministries, serving at New Life Campus Fellowship – Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.]

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