But This Time...

Well, it happened again.  It probably happens a lot, and I’m just not aware of it.  But this time…

A friend’s name just kept coming to me for over a month.  And every time I thought of her name, I also felt that I needed to go over to her house and pray for her.  I saw her over this period of time, but I never told her of the promptings.

You know how it is.  Life interferes with our good intentions.  Or maybe I was just lazy and didn’t get over there.  I’d like to believe the former, but I’m pretty sure it was the latter.

Between the holidays, a little traveling, bronchitis and extremely cold weather, I kept putting it on the back burner.  When things calm down, I told myself, I’ll get right on over there.

Finally, this past week, I called her and invited myself over.  I usually don’t do that, but, frankly, I was tired of this feeling that I needed to pray for her.  I just wanted get it over with. It was really in self-defense way more than any spiritual connection.

My strategy was to ask her how she was doing and how her family was doing, then tell her about this nudge I was getting, pray for her, and go on about my business.  In my mind, it was much more about me than it was about her.

So I asked my two polite questions so that I could get on to the praying part.  Forty-five minutes later, the praying began.  In between, she told me what had happened in her family’s life in just the last few days. 

Family problems are always the worst, aren’t they?  It’s a very hard thing when family lets us down.

It just so happens that I had gone through something similar decades ago.  She already knew some of it, but now she knows most of it.  She knows the parts that can help her the most now.  But not because I was oh, so wonderful to show up on her doorstep and listen to her, share with her and pray with her.

No, it wasn’t because of me at all.  It was because God loves her in a very profound way. 

And even though I believe it wasn’t because of me, the crazy thing is that I got a blessing out of it even if she didn’t.  Because I felt that God had used little old me in His great big plan.

Mercy!  His blessings come showering down upon us.  Even when we’re just looking out for ourselves. 

Especially when we’re just looking out for ourselves.