I was sitting in a coffee shop a few days ago, waiting for a friend. When she arrived, she asked me what I was working on. At the time, I was brainstorming for this blog, so I explained my whole “About Me” page to my friend. To our right, there was a beautiful woman listening, whose name was Paula. She looked up at me with apologetic yet excited eyes and said “Sorry to interrupt…” Right away I knew a really good conversation was about to spark between the three of us.

Explaining my blog to her as well, she reassured me it was a good idea to write everything down somewhere. Then… She began.

This woman left home at the age of 18 (she’ll kill me if she ever knew I said exactly how old she currently is), this woman is now over 50 years old, but looks like she is hitting 35 next month. Ever since she stepped out of her home over 22 years ago, she has been travelling and racing her way across this curious planet we call Earth.

She shared stories from the 80’s of her running away from Russian soldiers because they caught her taking a picture, sleeping on Swiss trains to get away from the overpriced hotels of Europe, getting culture-shocked by how many people could fit in to one grocery store in Asia. Then she looked at us with an urgency in her expression and said “I really regret not writing all of this down somewhere, because when I die it will be totally gone.” She insisted on the importance of keeping a memory not just for the sake of keeping it, but so that others could read about world-wide experiences, imagine a variety of different places of the world, get informed about cultures, and hear about the types of people who can change you.

My friend and I were joined by a third friend and we then began to talk about our faith and the wonderful things we believe in. Because this isn’t a subject we can regularly discuss in public with complete strangers, we were eager to find out that Paula had something she wanted to say, something to add to what we were talking about.

Paula told us that she is a science professor. Me being unfamiliar with scientists, I wasn’t sure if she was about to argue the existence of God with science or if she was going to challenge us in our faith (which is something my friends and I love). She started with telling us that every scientist, no matter what specialization, normally believes in something (I’m not generalizing, but that has been her experience with her fellow scientists); any sort of higher power/faith. She continued with explaining that she belongs to no religion, but how she still believes so strongly that God is there, God is observant, God is loving, God is saving. She was motivating, hilarious and very impactful with the way she could speak and make every word so genuine and meaningful.

Over the course of the next 3 hours, we had a couple more friends join us throughout the evening and who all received the honour of meeting our new friend Paula, a woman with life-impacting stories, beautiful perspective on the subjects of the world, and a curious and wonderful heart. Everyone who met her that evening and had the privilege of spending time in conversation with her agreed that she was a motivation and inspiration to all of us. She was a strong, spunky, worldly woman that no one will ever forget about in their lives. She carries herself beautifully, her smile proving strength to the world and her eyes filled with experiences to share.

My prayer from this point forward is to encounter strangers. To talk to people who I don’t know and I may never see again, and to learn everything I can possibly learn from them in that short amount of time.

My lesson learned is that every person on this earth, no matter what you see in front of you, is capable of teaching you something. Every human being was born with a wonderful purpose, and I would love to come eye-to-eye with as many people in my lifetime who may not realize it, but have something to teach the world.

Remember you have something so valuable to teach the world. Someone out there is waiting to hear what you know, so don’t ever stay quiet. Say good morning, grab a coffee and start talking, because what you have to share with the world is so important, so crucial to me. You never know whose life you could change…