God’s perfect timing leaves everlasting impressions on my faith nearly every single day.

On this rainy Monday morning, I had been ready for the gym for a while but waited a significant amount of time to leave to let the rain ease up as these Tennessee back country roads can get pretty difficult pretty quickly. It was a route that became a place of fear just a few short weeks ago during my same Monday routine and a close call, that became a route of mercies on this particular March morning.

I got about three miles away from the house, passed a broken down van, and came up on a lady walking up a steep hill with a cane in the pouring rain. It was a clear struggle. Instantly I felt a tug on my heart. As the Holy Spirit started speaking into me with the whys, I started bucking with the why nots. What if that is her ploy? Picking up random strangers isn’t something that I do on a normal basis but I’ve learned when the Holy Spirit prompts you to move, you move. I turned around and pulled up to her and asked if she wanted to use my phone because I wasn’t sure of putting her in my car with my human fleshly fears. Standing as two human souls in the pouring rain, I could see the brokenness and discouragement in her. As discernment prompted, I put her in the car and drove her to her house. I knew I had protection underneath me but all I needed was the protection above me. I prayed that God would take care of me even if she had to of been a dangerous person. We talked a little, more surface level conversation and I dropped her off to a house that had always caught my attention, for no particular reason.

We said our goodbyes and I went on my merry way. As I got closer to the gym, I remembered that she said they only had one car. I realized that they would have to walk back to the car all that way in the rain. So I turned around again and drove straight back to their driveway. As I was trying to figure out if I was going to walk up and knock on the door or blow the horn, I saw her husband coming down the driveway. I asked him if I could take him and I’m sure he was just as skeptical of me as I was of him. But he asked me if I minded, and I said of course not!

He said that his wife had had 4 knee replacements and couldn’t have made it much further if I wouldn’t have stopped to pick her up. He said they had just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary and told me they had 6 kids and 9 grandkids. I dropped him back off at the van and asked if I could follow him, and he said he should be good from there, with is head hung low looking at what he was going to do next to get out of this mess, one that had supposedly been an ongoing problem.

There wasn’t anything magical that happened in this turn of events but after leaving them, I struggled fighting back tears with an empathetic heart for them and the struggles that they are enduring. I don’t know what their struggles are or how many they have, but something in their eyes told me that it wasn’t just a few. I always believe that’s the outlet to the soul. My heart is running wild of why and how this morning. What would God’s plan be for this? Why did I leave late to go to the gym and how did I ever feel comfortable enough to stop and pick up a complete stranger, much less go back to their house uninvited and tell the man to jump in.

Then the light switch went off. I remembered that I had been praying for God to reveal people to me that needed light. For him to put people in our paths that craved love and hope in a day where there was none. And to think that for a few minutes I fought with myself on not picking them up because of my own fleshly fears and disobedience, thinking that I knew better than to answer the door on the very things that I had been praying for. I wanted to pray so badly for her in that car but was fighting back tears as soon as I pulled in her driveway as she struggled getting out of my car with her cane in the pouring rain. I wanted to grab her up and hug her and tell her that everything was going to be ok. It’s a bold question to ask to pray with someone or to grab them up and hug them, but that’s not what I was fighting against, I was fighting against someone seeing me cry over God’s sovereign plan and answer to prayer and feeling like I needed to explain that they were happy tears, not sad ones. Hindsight, I wish I would have jumped in head first and hugged her with everything I had and whispered a prayer over her life.

I don’t write this for recognition, but I write this because we all know that there have been people put in our lives and paths daily that we ignore, that we just pass on the streets. There has been a little voice prompting you to speak or to pull over, or to reach out, or to give a hug. But there is a little deceptive voice inside all of us that fights that logic. And this morning was a pure blessing to me to meet two more human beings that are struggling. To meet two more human beings that are searching for good in a broken world. To meet two more human beings that have a purpose in this world, just like we all do. To meet two more human beings that look just like me. And just as it says in Hebrews, “Do not neglect to show hospitality, for in doing this some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it.” Because one thing I’m sure of, is that I was the one blessed this morning.

In a world full of such corruption, it’s hard to know who is noble and true and who is lurking with danger. God will take us unexpected places, but in those places always comes growth. Following in his prompts leads to a faith in his obedience. Never underestimate the beauty in his plan that looks nothing like our own. Never underestimate the storm that slows you down so that you can see the rainbow. Never underestimate the person that doesn’t necessarily look like you or talk like you, because sometimes, that’s where you see Christ’s love the very most.

Situations like these are trust building bricks that are laying a foundation that is unbreakable and unshakable. Sometimes when he prompts me, I find myself saying “really, you want me to do that?” But one thing I can say that I have learned in life-  I’ve only regretted the promptings that I didn’t listen to, not the ones I did. I’d still rather be the one that loved the most, than the one that loved the least.

C. Elizabeth