Many years ago, I did early morning paper delivery.  It was a great opportunity to make a bit of money as a single parent.  My son would be asleep in the backseat and I would drive the neighborhood streets tossing papers to driveways and porches.  One early morning, my car got a flat tire.  I’ve changed a tire before, so I grabbed the jack and proceeded to block the other wheels and begin raising the car.  The jack failed.  Here I am, in the wee hours of the morning, with a sleeping child, a front seat full of newspapers and no cellphone (this was pre-cellphone era). I’m sitting contemplating my next move, praying for revelation when I look up and see a vision of a woman and a small dog walking down the sidewalk.  Wait.  What?  3 am and there is a dog walker?  She generously offered to call the office from her home and then returned to tell me, my supervisor was on his way with a jack.  That woman and her insomnia was a miracle!  She kept me company while we waited for help to arrive.  Another single mom, she was kind and had an infectious laugh.

Fast forward 5 years…my son had recently started attending a Christian school and was making new, wonderful friends and Olivia was one of those classmates.  He talked incessantly about her and her sister. As I am waiting to pick him up one day, chatting with other moms, I hear a familiar laugh from behind.  Familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I heard it before.  Turning to look for the source, I see the same vision of the dog walking woman from my early morning catastrophe…5 years earlier.

I couldn’t resist.  I approached her and asked if she remembered that encounter.  She did!  We couldn’t believe it!  Here we were, in the same parking lot, collecting our kids.  What came of that chance meeting so many years before?  We enjoyed a friendship that spanned a couple of decades.  She began attending the same church and I ended up hiring her and later, both her daughters for openings with a community athletic club I was working at. Ultimately, she replaced me when I left for another opportunity.

God’s timing of knitting people together is awe-inspiring!  How individuals come into our lives at just the right moment is not something that happens by chance.  We don’t always see it at the front end, but when we look back at the connections we’ve had, it is the makings of a masterpiece called life!  I don’t believe we’re smart enough to orchestrate the network.  Our goal is to be available, with eyes to see and ears to hear the promptings.  We need to be brave and confident to move forward in faith, knowing that something greater is at work.  It is the adventure of living a faith-filled, prayerful life!