10.20.06
A God Sighting
by Bill WilliamsWe were saddened to see the moving van in our backyard neighbor’s driveway. We had never been close to her, but, since she had been widowed shortly after we moved into her neighborhood, we’ve tried to keep an eye on her. She was very independent and really never needed anything. Now she’s off to North Carolina to be closer to her children.
There was one occasion in which she was glad we lived in her neighborhood. It was the Saturday before Easter a few years ago. We had been receiving soaking rains for a couple of weeks. The ground was completely saturated, but heavy rains continued to fall. As I stood drinking my morning coffee and looking across our neighbor’s backyard meadow, I noticed that one of her towering pine trees was leaning against the side of one of her storage sheds. If there was any more loosening of its root system, it would come crashing down on her sheds and likely damage most of the expensive equipment they housed. At the least, it would be a big mess to clean up.
My wife called her and let her know what we had noticed. We didn’t learn until later on, that she had already noticed the potential disaster. More about that in a moment. Upon receiving my wife’s call our neighbor started asking what we thought she should do. We both told her that since this was such a potentially dangerous job (the trees are really tall in Delaware), she needed the service of professionals. While I made a call to a Christian man who owns a tree service business, my wife met our neighbor in the backyard to survey the damage.
The tree man was just getting ready to leave town for a family vacation over the Easter break (our children attend the same Christian school). After I explained the circumstances, he said he would come right away and take a look at the situation. He said that he would make some calls en route to see if he could get some of his workers to come in that afternoon (on their day off) and get this lady back in business (or something like that).
Well, he was there in the backyard within thirty minutes. He and our neighbor pointed and gestured for a few minutes and then he was gone. Within a couple of hours he and his crew showed up with their massive boom truck. Birds took to flight and saws started buzzing, within a few short hours they were done.
After we noticed that they were gone my wife called our neighbor just to make sure that all was well with her. She was so grateful for the tree-man that showed up to help her. She said that he hardly charged her anything. The amount that she reported sounded to me like he had charged her just enough to cover his labor expenses.
Then she shared with my wife that she had noticed the leaning tree before she had called earlier. In fact, she said that at the very moment that my wife called she was walking up the stairs from her basement crying out to God for help. She said that she was literally asking out loud to God, “How can I possibly find someone to come remove this tree on Easter weekend?†Then the phone rang. By my way of thinking, that’s a God sighting.
Does anyone else have a similar story to share?
© Bill Williams, October 18, 2006
(Originally posted at the Spiritual Oasis)
Nancy said,
October 20, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Far too many to tell, but they never get old. It’s like seeing pinpricks of light through an old pie safe door. Just glimpses of how much God loves us. Thanks.Danny Sims said,
October 21, 2006 at 5:32 am
What a wonderful example of how God listens and helps. What many call coincidences are examples of this, such as… The occasion when a young couple I know was broke. I mean absolutely broke. The baby had very little formula left, they had no milk or bread in the house.
Early in the morning they prayed for some help. My friend had long ago canceled his newspaper subscription, but they guy was still throwing the paper. He unrolled the morning paper and found a $20 bill tucked inside. They called the man who threw their paper and he said he had no idea.
They asked a neighbor who also knew nothing of it. They had no idea who, how, or why, except to thank God for getting them through another day or two. And He always does.
john dobbs said,
October 21, 2006 at 11:24 am
Awesome stories … same has happened to us once when we were so broke and didn’t know how we were going to pay our bills. We were in our first year of marriage and had just moved a few months prior. I told Maggy, "well, when we get home there’ll be some money in the mailbox."
I don’t know why I thought that, maybe it was a joke. But it was no joke. There were two or three letters in the mailbox with checks in them. I’ve tried to make that happen again, with no success. God knows what we NEED I guess!
Mr.Kappus said,
October 21, 2006 at 3:28 pm
I had to attend a court hearing three days back, and had lost the paper work stating what time it was for, assuming I had read it right I went early just in case I was wrong. I was terribly wrong. I was already two hours late by the time I arrived.
As it turned out, I took a moment to wait on God for an answer, and fed a few sparrows some pretzels in the court yard, and then walked until I got on a bus that took me to a gallery I had been at a year before to ask an artist for advice. She was widowed and very sad with great things happening for her in her winter years and we both opened up in sweet conversation for about an hour or so. She missed her huband terribly and the only poem I had with me was about "Walking with God" one more time.
I know in my heart I was meant to be there at that moment and the results will Glorify OUR Father in heaven. I have always called moments like this…synchronicity.
I also found a space, across the street from there, that may be able to show some of my art when completed and found a place to rest my head when the home I am in is packed up and emptied. Both places I had been to almost exactly a year ago as I stepped out in Faith to follow my journey as an artist and poet. So many wonderful caring people I have met on the road.
I am now in the phase of lightening my load for easy travel. I always had itchy legs when I was a child in church…I think I know why now. Feel free to call me Kappy the Klown! I heard somewhere that the devil doesn’t like clowns…so I guess the best way to fight off oppression, or any other thing that destroys the soul, is thru the good word and humour…and a kazoo!
What a wonderful beginning to a new way of life. Now if I just had a travel buddy. Someone that likes music and poetry and of course art. But best and most the Word of God. And to think I am but a little child in all this.
What wonderous things occur when planting a mustard seed. (something my Grandmother taught me…along with folding things in thirds to remember our station in life…even a chore such as packing can be done in honor of The Holy Trinity…Father, Son and Spirit)
Also noted that United Church in Christ is within earshot from a good place to sleep. And I hum a new song…
Back In the Arms of My God Once Again! Graciously Indebted to all who continue to pray…as my internet and phone service is still on, the electricity is working, and none in my family have gone without sustenence, except two particular young adults, one underworked and emotionally traumatized..a victim of awful crimes, and another overworked and in need of tender mercies before he blows up…whom I look to his wife to uphold the right and truth of God until he can see on his own.
Both need edification and guidence from a HP. And I don’t mean a Hewlett Packard! LOL
Dee Andrews said,
October 21, 2006 at 4:23 pm
This happened when I was about 20 years old, living in east Texas in Nacogdoches. I was married with one son of 2 and expecting a second child.
One day I went with an older friend (probably in her 30s) to go take a big box of groceries to a young woman she knew of through the church who needed help. We drove half way down to Lufkin and way out in the woods to a “cabin†that can only be described as one comparable to one of a poor “sharecropper†from the 1930s. It had running cold water (only), no bathroom and three rooms. It was roughly the size of a FEMA trailer.
In one room were a couple of mattresses on the floor with no bedding on them. They reeked of urine. The second room I do not remember. The third was the kitchen. Huge ants crawled throughout, including into the refrigerator that did not close all the way. The stove and table held the remains of water gravy and koolaid. There was no other food in the house.
The people living there weren’t home. It was empty and filthy. The occupants were a young white couple and their 3 little girls. The mother was only 19, the disabled husband about 35, I guess. It was hard to say because he looked much older. She was pregnant with her fourth child, which would be another girl.
We sadly looked around the place and outhouse in the back, all deep in the woods, and left our groceries with a note.
She told us later that they had driven into Lufkin for financial help, which they could not find. They had no more food or money to buy food, even milk for their 3 babies. What we took to them that afternoon was all they were to have for a while and it was a huge surprise to them when they arrived back home.
After having her 4th daughter, my friend was instrumental in finding the young woman a job in Nacogdoches and things went better for her family.
We left there after my husband at the time graduated and I never knew the end results of what we did in their lives. But I know that if we had not taken them food that afternoon when we did, they would have had no dinner at all and would have had to subsist on the water gravy and koolaid they’d had for lunch.
Did God intervene on their behalf? She was a young Christian who prayed. I can only believe that He did.
Every time I’ve thought of that day since I’ve been in awe for the longest time at all the blessings in my own life even in the worst of times, because I don’t think they’ve ever been as bad as that. And I am blessed. Thanks for the chance to share that story.
It’s been on my heart the past few days for some reason. I wish I could know what happened to all of them later on. That was so long ago and far away. God have mercy on us all.
pam said,
October 22, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Lately I’ve seen God’s purposes and plans unfold for me in the midst of pain and heartache. It seems that not one friendship or connection I’ve made during the past several years has been for naught. He is faithful and working on our behalf even (and maybe mostly) during times when we are completely unaware of His help. Thanks for sharing this story and letting making me aware of Grace Notes! love in Him, pam