Timely Encounters

                                              

After a Monday morning therapy session, I sat in the foyer while waiting for Al, who was doing some shopping.  It was a good opportunity to review Bible verses and pray. Although the automatic front door would occasionally open with people entering or exiting the building, my chair was in a quiet place.

As the minutes ticked by, I went over several verses copied on small business-sized cards. After the chilly interior of the therapy room, I enjoyed the warmth of the foyer, with its windows reaching from the ground to the top of the second floor.

On my first visit, necessitated by a fall on my left hip, the therapist had surprised me by saying, “Be healed!” just as I was leaving. He wasn’t aware of the powerful impact those two words had on me.

“I’ll take that!” I said.

“Well, I wish it was as easy as that,” came his response. However, I was encouraged and through him was reminded that the Lord is indeed my Healer.

The therapist’s words seemed to mark a turning point in my mobility and level of pain. As I was sitting there waiting for Al, I felt very hopeful that my hip would heal up and that I would be able to walk again without assistance.

The sound of keys dropping onto the floor startled me and I looked up to see what had happened. A woman had accidently dropped her keys in the doorway. As she leaned over to pick them up, she put a hand on her back and then said,

“Oh, this arthritis!”

We started up a conversation about the cause of the flare-up—gardening. She didn’t have a large yard but there were lots of perennials that needed to be cared for and mulch that needed to be put down.

“Since my husband died, I’ve been doing it all myself,” she shared, her eyes welling up with tears. Then she went on to tell me of his recent passing and how difficult it was for her. He, a Viet Nam Vet, was laid to rest in the Great Lakes National Cemetery.

“It is a beautiful place,” she said.

I shared how my parents’ ashes were interred in the Bakersfield National Cemetery in California and how special it was. Dad was a second lieutenant in the Marines at the end of World War II. He and my mom were interred there together.

At that point in the conversation, I remembered the verse I had been reading before we started talking: “ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13) It is such an encouraging verse, one of my favorites. So, I handed her the little card.

 “Here, I want you to have this,” I said.

“Oh, don’t you want it?” She asked.

“No, it’s for you. I have that verse in my heart,” I assured her, putting my hand over my heart.

She proceeded to show me the cross necklace she was wearing, her grandmother’s,

 and then the two bracelets around her wrist. One of them had a golden charm attached to it. 

“Look,” she said. “It has my husband’s fingerprint on it!” His fingerprint had been imprinted on the oval shaped charm.

“Whenever I feel like he’s far away, I just touch his fingerprint!”

That was a beautiful thought. After she had left, I couldn’t help thinking how amazing it was that our paths crossed at just that moment. The Lord works in wonderful ways, doesn’t He? The therapist’s remark, the scripture on the memory card… encouragement to those in need. Praise the Lord!

Heaven sent

words of grace and mercy

touchdown!  (JLL)

“ ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’” declares the LORD.‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’” (Isaiah 55:8-11 NIV)

                                   Bakersfield Memorial Cemetery (where my parents ashes are interred).