‘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.
~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~
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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