It was cold and a steady rain was falling. It was dark outside and visibility was
poor. The ground was drenched and my
tennis shoes had become heavy buckets of water.
At 8 months pregnant, I waddled after my group of sixth graders who were
running for dear life to get to the next challenge in a Hunger Games inspired youth group event. For them, it was all fun, but I felt like I
was actually in a real arena and may, in fact, die that night. My maternity jeans were caked in mud, and
since my North Face wouldn’t zip over my bulging belly, the front of my shirt
was soaked. As I trudged up a steep,
muddy hill, I prayed I wouldn’t go sliding back down, and I counted the hours
until our game was over. It was that
kind of night.
After two hours of running around in the freezing rain with
screaming pre-teens, we were finally called back to the warmth of the
church. The youth pastor planned a short
message, and then we were free to go home.
Wet and weary, I quickly found Andy who was helping his boys get their
shoes lined up outside so as not to track mud into the building and asked him
for the car keys so I could at least change my wet shoes before the message. He reached in his pocket, but no keys
emerged. They were gone.
A quick survey of the church solidified our suspicion that
our car keys must have been lost in the makeshift arena outside. At this point, it was past 8:30 pm on a
Sunday night. I was cold and tired and
thoughts of a hot shower were all that were keeping me going. Instead, as he went back out in the rain to
look for the keys, I began fighting tears and searching for a locksmith who
could let us back into our house assuming we could find someone to take us home
from church. I texted my parents and
asked for prayers that Andy would find the keys, but I had very little faith
that the prayer would be answered. We
had covered such a massive area during the obstacle course, and that added to
the rain and dark had me convinced that the rest of the night would involve us
sitting on our front porch waiting for a locksmith.
But, after about 15-20 minutes of being gone, Andy reemerged
dangling our keys from his hands. It was
an absolute miracle, and we both immediately gave God the credit. He said that he looked in all the obvious
places, and then when he was headed back to the church without our keys, he
just happened to look down and see them in the middle of a field. God had provided.
I was immediately reminded of the story in the Bible when
God looked down on another pregnant woman and reassured her that she was
seen. In Genesis 16, Hagar is a slave
girl who is going through a difficult time and being mistreated by her
mistress, Sarai. She runs away, but God
looks down on her from heaven and gives her a promise about her future and the
child she is carrying and offers her the encouragement she needs to go
home. She responds to him saying, “You
are the God who sees me. I have now seen
the One who sees me” (Genesis 16:13).
Nothing miraculous happened to Hagar in the desert that day other than
the fact that she heard from the Lord.
He didn’t do a miracle or dramatically change her situation – he just
reminded her that he saw her and he knew her.
On that rainy, cold night, God did the same for me. Various circumstances in life right now, have
left me uneasy and stressed, but that night a few weeks ago when God
miraculously provided our missing car keys reminded me that he always sees me –
even in the small things. He knew that I
was wet and cold and basically miserable.
He knew that I was at the end of what I could take and that a warm
shower and sleep were exactly what I needed after that game night, and he
provided a way for me to get both quickly.
His providence reminded me that if he cares about missing car keys, he
cares about the big issues weighing on my heart, too. He sees those as well. He may not answer them as quickly, but he has
not forgotten, and he is always with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment