Accidentally, On Purpose

‘What a great guy,’ Sam remarked, slowly putting down the yellow legal sized paper with the unfamiliar handwriting. The letter had arrived earlier that day, the return address not known to us. From an early age, all our girls recognized the delight, and today the intrigue, of a handwritten envelope.

The letter was one of gratitude. Months earlier Sam had stopped to act as a witness to an accident at a busy intersection on his way home from work. He knew it would be hard to determine who was at fault without an unbiased observer. If he had been involved, he hoped someone would wait for an officer to arrive; do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Because Sam was willing to be inconvenienced, the letter writer was not charged with the accident and he was spared the five hundred dollar deductible to repair the damage to his vehicle. The letter continued by offering if there was anything he could do to be of help, please let him know.

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A small group of ladies met in the secondary kitchen/meeting room of the large church where our whole family was very involved. A new lady arrived and joined in the discussion readily, confidently, and delightfully. ‘Please don’t let her be someone who is just visiting,’ I whispered as a silent, sincere prayer. ‘Please let her be someone who will stay.’

Afterward, after introductions, we quickly discovered we had many friends in common through a non-denominational Bible study I had been involved in and where she was acting as a substitute teaching leader. Small world, big God! What a wonderful gift to meet Leah, then later her husband Steve and their two children.

As hoped, their whole family quickly became involved and integral to the church, using their many and varied gifts to the glory of God and the joy of the people.

Months later, our associate pastor announced the move of his family to a camp ministry for the denomination. His wife and I had been praying by phone together weekly for over a year for the needs of family, neighbors, and church. The Sunday that the move was announced, Leah came to me hurriedly after the service and said she’d like to be my next prayer partner.

‘All my prayer partners always move, eventually. (But not before our hearts are lovingly entwined, I neglected to add.) Are you prepared to move in the next couple years?’

 ‘My extended family is all here. We’ve been here for many years.  I’m not going anywhere,’ she boasted.

Hmmm. We’ll see.

When, how, where should we meet to pray together?  Our children had youth and children ministry meetings on Wednesday evenings, so we decided that would be most practical. The only available space was a small copy room in the church office, so that’s where we knelt and prayed on the behalf of many and ourselves.  We marveled at God’s blessing and goodness. We also discussed openly our befuddlement at the many inexplicable circumstances of life where we found ourselves and loved ones. Determined, we held each other accountable to be hopeful and watchful for a way to be opened for resolution.

Praying for someone is a way to care for and love them, even if you never meet in person. Praying with someone is a way to cement a friendship for a lifetime, no matter how many miles separate you or how many years pass between conversations. That is the friendship we began forging, week after week, not knowing then the quality of what was being built.

Steve used his wonderful music skills to help with worship in the youth ministry and acted as a wise counselor. Soon he was either bringing our older daughters home after youth group, or we would meet him at a designated place near their home, which was on the same north end of town but still ten minutes or more from our home. To our delight, our whole families became friends with one another.

One Sunday, when their family was at our house after church for lunch, everyone scattered into various pairings for conversation as the final preparations for eating were accomplished. The men, who both traveled in their jobs, shared tales of traffic and traveling woes with one another.

Steve began sharing about an accident he had been involved in at a local busy intersection. ‘It was with an orange Mercedes, wasn’t it?’ Sam exclaimed. Steve shook his head slowly in astonishment as Sam finished the story. ‘I was the one in the car behind you who waited to give the cop my card as a witness. You even wrote me a thank you letter later! We still have it!’

Small world, big God, indeed.

I’m not a mathematician, but I know the odds for this meeting again so many years later are astronomical. And providential. And not coincidental.

Seeing God, the Arranger, at work so up close and personal in our lives made it slightly easier to say good-bye to them a couple years later when they moved to the west coast of Florida, despite Leah’s earlier adamant predictions to the contrary. Once she met me halfway, in Lakeland, when the burden I was bearing was so great that only a face to face conversation with a dear friend who would not only tell me the truth but also remind me of the Truth would suffice.

We remain friends though they are now in the northeast and we have only seen one another twice in the last five years. We don’t talk on the phone or e-mail regularly. But I’ll rearrange my life if I can visit with her for a few minutes on a layover in an Orlando airport or if she has a few spare hours when she is in town visiting family.

How wise is Leah? She once quipped that she is skeptical of reading the writing of authors who haven’t been dead for at least a hundred years! Yet, she introduced me to wise women writers as varied as Amy Carmichael, Carolyn James, and Anne Lamott.

How flexible is Leah? On the cusp of letting her nursing license lapse, she instead went back to school, eventually getting her doctorate in palliative care and teaching at a northern university. Living in Pennsylvania makes seeing the families of her beloved children and grandchildren infrequent. She longs to be nearer and to be a more ready presence in their lives.

How faithful is Leah? She has a list of ‘prodigals’ that she prays for regularly, even though only one of them has returned home to faith and family in many years. Still, she prays. Still, she hopes. Her continued regular prayers for me have mattered more than she will ever know as she trusts Him to help me avoid the sins ‘such are common to man’ and to make a difference in the sphere of influence where I live.

'You are constantly in my heart, frequently in my thoughts, and regularly in my prayers,’ was the closing of  a recent correspondence. How truly rich I am to have a friend like her.

And it all started accidently.

On purpose.

 

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Mother's Happy Day

We stopped counting after the twentieth outpatient visit to our mother’s local hospital. The staff nodded, waved, or smiled their greetings of recognition as we walked the same path each time through the lobby, admissions, and various levels until we reached our therapy destination. As predictable as the coming of a full moon, we came every four to six weeks, sometimes sooner, but never later.

The week of our first daughter’s wedding, she had an open heart surgery, made more tenuous because of a history of several ongoing health issues. Thankfully, she made it through surgery and had recovered just enough to sit quietly at the back of the church to observe her granddaughter’s wedding. Unfortunately, what had been good for her heart was bad for her lungs. A painful, slow buildup of fluid now had to be drained for release and relief.

We would learn what a pulmonologist was for and wonder why so few of them were practicing in our large urban sprawl. Timely appointments were hard to get. Fortunately, a doctor’s orders were not necessary for each procedure after he confirmed this would become part of her health routine.

A strong, feisty woman who had been turned gentler and submissive by the loss of her husband and her better health, she now went quietly to doctors to be told what would happen next. Still, as an intelligent and widely self-educated woman, she could still muster a clear, ‘no’, to medicines that made her hurt and diminished, or to diets and regimens she knew she would not stick with for long.

Today we carried x-rays from the previous week’s pulmonology visit showing the lungs were half full, the pressure building and the deep breathing capacity diminishing. We walked slowly from the parking lot, carrying the confirmation of her self-diagnosis in a large labeled envelope, acknowledging as we went the friendly welcome of the many staff that recognized us as familiar strangers.

I handed the technician the films of my mother’s lungs and watched her gentle care as she guided her to the room where the procedure would take place. A large needle would be inserted between her ribs on her back. As much as a liter of fluid would be withdrawn. Just thinking about it made me squeamish. Wisely, I was never given the option of accompanying her into the treatment room. She rarely revealed the pain she was in, her growing stillness, gathering her resolve to be brave.

I settled into a chair and pulled out a magazine from a book bag I kept packed ready for waiting rooms in doctors’ offices.

After five minutes, the technician returned. “I’m sorry. We won’t be able to drain your mother’s lungs today.”

“But we have an appointment,” I responded, walking towards her, confused.

“She doesn’t have any fluid in her lungs.”

“B-B-But… the x-ray. The doctor said…” I stammered.

“There is nothing to drain today,” was the emphatic response.
 

Arm in arm, happy tears streaming down our faces, we slowly retraced our steps back to the car, stopping to inform the staff and anyone who looked like they wondered what had happened to us that Jesus had healed my mother! The answer to a multitude of prayers had been “YES!” today.
 

Our voices were incredulous and full of the shock of an unexpected generous gift as we could not keep quiet about the miracle of divine restoration we had witnessed that morning. We walked as in a dream, periodically shaking our heads, and laughing with joy, marveling together at God’s goodness towards us.
 

Almost six weeks later, we were back for another lung draining procedure. Yet our confidence and trust remained high. We knew God could and had healed my mother, although only for a season. Because He had, we knew He might again. We were reminded  in an unforgettable way that He hears us and knows not only what is best for us but when is best for us. We could trust Him. And we did.
 

Months later, the pulmonologist would coat the inside of her lungs with a film of talc, a carcinogen. The powder would stop the painful procedures for a projected twenty years. The potential risks deemed less than the potent realities in her advancing years.
 

I try to remember the lessons learned that day when a situation in life is inexplicably difficult for an inexplicably long time. Always, if I will pay attention, there is some confirmation somewhere that there is reason for hope, that my pleas and prayers have been heard, that help is on the way, if only for a season.
 

For centuries the wise and devoted Julian of Norwich has been quoted by those who wait in difficulty, “All shall be well…”
 

For decades I have observed her words to be true - all shall be well - indeed; in due course, eventually, in the fullness of time…”all shall be well.”