On Christmas Eve Day, reflecting on the miracle of Christmas
magic all around us seems quite fitting. Are you cognizant of God’s handy work
in your life or just moving around in automatic pilot as if things happen by your
design, poor luck with no rhyme or reason and no divine intervention? If that were the case, what would be the
point in having faith, praying or celebrating the birth of a newborn King every
year?
As I reflect on several ‘chance’ meetings I can see a plan
unfold in my life that has led to tremendous growth and blessings in my own
life. Through my own sufferings I have grown and developed into who I am
today. Just to share a few…
Years ago, on a trip home from New York, we were on the
expressway and the traffic was barely moving. We were in Cleveland and stopped
at a rest area to take a break. We had replayed CD music over and over and even
that was getting old. As we walked up the walkway a huge crowd was gathered
outside. It was September 11, 2011 and
we were told what was going on.
As the crowd grew larger, we all bonded there, from all
walks of live over an American tragedy that we all knew, forever would change
our lives, our country. Fellow Americans
had died while we had sat in our cars bitching about backed up traffic. We had
all noticed no airplanes flying overhead and thought it odd. Never had we dreamed what had taken
place. Never again would any of us be so
foolish as to think stopped traffic was the end of the world. Keep your perspective
on the road and in life. Patience truly is a virtue. Living is what matters. You are given the
blessing of life while others time has run out.
Driving home from celebrating Christmas with family, we
stopped for gas one year. In the
restroom, I heard a young girl sobbing in the stall. With urging, I got her to
come out. She was afraid her mother’s
boyfriend would hear her crying she told me.
We whispered so I could calm her down and find out what was going on as
something told me this young girl needed me. She told me she was 10 years
old. Red-eyed with pony tails I told her to ease her fear we would
blast the water in the sink to cover our voices. She was to tell him we did not talk and I
only helped her clean up the sink and try to shut it off.
Her story was that he had pushed her out of the moving car
on his way to get gas while driving fast. Leaving her roadside, bruised and
scrapped and cut up, he only came back a little later to pick her up. She was
living in fear because he was very mean to her and hurt her. I gave her advice on how to try to live with
him and reiterated she must speak up to her teacher, doctor and anyone else she
knew and thought to be a safe person about what was going on. If her mother
wasn’t keeping her safe she needed to find someone who was.
At this point, a man began screaming at the door, yelling
what apparently was her name. I yelled back, roughly as if I too was a foul
mouthed woman telling him the sink was messed up and I was helping her clean it
up. I whispered to her to not let a word on and just hang in there, pray to God
and He will listen and tell a safe person as soon as she gets a chance, kissed
and hugged her. I told her one day you will be safe like I got there! She smiled and walked out. And I prayed, I
prayed hard and I cried. And I thanked God for letting me have the chance to be
a light of hope. We all need to be the
person that tells children that are hurting that the future can and will be
brighter. And also, if their parents are hurting them, tell someone who cares
and will do something about it. Be a child’s mouthpiece, God puts you there for
a reason.
The first time I attended a camp for cancer survivors, I
felt out of place. I wasn’t sure I would connect with any of the ladies there.
The second morning I was there, I stepped in the restroom to take a shower and
saw a woman at the sink. As she turned around, I saw this strange aura around
her, like a golden light. She says she got a strange feeling about me. As we
talked, we felt as if we had known each other for years. We quickly became soul
mates.
Since that time, one of my dearest friends has seen me through
a many tragedies and triumphs and I have been with her either in presence or
spirit through hers. It can be in the strangest places that God brings into
your life the greatest of his healers and allows you to be the great healer for
others and soul mate for another. Do not walk into rooms with your eyes shut to
strangers.
As I swam my laps in the pool, my foot came in contact with
a person. I lifted my head and saw a stranger! Apologizing I found out it was a
new person to our community I had just kicked hard in the abdomen of all
places! Feeling horrified, she laughed
saying ouch as it had to hurt. The second time I met this nice lady was I had
to interview her for the community newsletter I write for as she was a new
resident. Luckily she declined to
comment on the “kick” in the article! LOL!
Since that time, she and I have developed a very special
friendship that continues to grow. I have friends in the community but prefer
keeping intimate friendships more too very few. And yet, with this woman it is
as if that kick worked backwards and was a kick to me. It is as if God kicked
me and told me this woman is something extra special. I am not sure, if that
hadn’t happened I would have reached out, conversed and spent the extra time
getting to know her on the surface we have nothing in common and yet, in
getting to know her, she is beautiful inside and out. She is truly enriching my
life as our friendship grows. I find
myself almost grateful I kicked her and now thinking God had something to do
with it because I truly do sometimes get too caught up in my own world. Be open
and don’t get so comfortable that you are afraid to let others in. God may be
putting them there for a reason.
On Jesus’s birth, many were in denial that a King could be
born in a mere stable. They did not see
