Faithful messengers are as refreshing as snow in the heat of summer.

~Proverbs 25:13a

A Sunday Reflection 

She wears a colorful striped sweater, lays her bible and purse on a chair, and sits next to me in the circle of women. Leans over with a cell phone cupped in her palm, asks for my phone number before we start talking about the teaching we just heard. It’s been a while since we looked each other in the eyes and let’s do lunch sometime, it rarely collides with kids, mini-vans, and to-do lists.

*****

The next evening, lounging on the couch in reading glasses, furry blankets and the Distant Hours spread out over my lap, the cell phone startles midway through paragraph two on page 201. A text message from a number I don’t recognize. Someone asks if I will pray. Pray for a young man, the son of a mutual friend, who waits for a doctor at the hospital to look at the burns on his face and eye. They ask if I would tell the group to pray too.

 I respond that I will, and ask, “Who is this sending the message.”

Learn, it’s the friend in the striped sweater who came to the group for the first time and asks for my phone number.

Our mutual friend and mother of the young man with the burns, she sat in the circle with us too.

I ask my daughter, lying prostrate on the couch across the room, to mute the noise so can we pray.  Together, we close our eyes and ask Him for peace and to heal this one He loves.

When my eyes open after amen, I compose an email, ask the group to pray and one by one they respond: Praying.

*****

The next morning, I zip up my boots; hear the muffled sound of my cell phone underneath the covers of my bed. Pick it up and read the message: God is good, the diagnosis is promising, thank you for praying, and He is doing a mighty work in and through that boy!

Standing at the foot of my bed in my brown boots and jeans with fingers clutching tight around my cell phone, I smile and whisper thanks to Him.  Decide that there are no coincidences in God’s time. He’s doing a mighty work in and through all of us.

Today, wherever you sit, may you know that each day is a providential gift. Happy Sunday friends!