Portland just came through a week of bitter cold and ice! We were basically stuck at home from Saturday morning until Saturday morning. During that week of winter weather our new neighbors texted and asked if we had a snow shovel they could borrow. Jeff dutifully went to the garage and got ours to take over to them. As I worked in the kitchen making breakfast I could hear the scraping of the shovel as our neighbor worked. She took a break and later on that morning completed her task. While she was winding up the driveway we had a knock on our door. A young man was there and he said that he too would like to borrow our shovel. He told us that he has spent the night in his car which was stuck on the other side of the bridge, about 16 blocks from our house. He had walked all that way in the cold thinking “I need a shovel”, but he hadn’t known what to do. He had been about to turn around when he heard our neighbor working and come to ask to borrow her shovel. She had told him it was our shovel and to ask us. He was very nervous, but felt okay since we had a sign that said we were a church. It was so cold we invited him in and chatted a bit while Jeff found another shovel with a stronger blade for the ice and I got some gloves for the young man. He said he couldn’t believe the coincidence that he had found the shovel and found us. I told him theologian Frederick Buechner said ” Every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: “You’ve turned up in the right place at the right time. You’re doing fine. Don’t ever think that you’ve been forgotten.”” For me coincidence is like God waving and saying are you paying attention? I’m here with you. He smiled and went off with shovels and gloves.
About 90 minutes later he was back with both shovels and the gloves. We offered him food and made sure he had a safe place to stay that night that was not the back seat of his car. Then he was on his way. I loved this interaction with him because it reminded me that God was there. That even snowed in we could share good news with the world in love. So look for God waving at you and know that you are indeed doing fine and can make the world brighter in the smallest and simplest of everyday happenings.
-E
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