A God Close By

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a former student. (He sends one every so often, about every month or so.) I love hearing from him, as he always shares not only what is going on in his life, but also his insights into things.

In this email, he told me about a situation where he really felt God speaking to him in a real way. The catch was, it was over something relatively small in the grand scheme of things. He wrote, "Now I know this is so insignificant in the whole scheme of life and the world ... but it was really nice to see Jesus and talk to Him and see that He can do wondrous things. It still amazes me. We know He can do amazing things, but we always like to be reminded."

I responded and told him how amazing this was, and how I really feel that Jesus really loves to be in the little things.

This past Thursday, my coworker asked if I'd like to grab breakfast with her during our mutual free first period. This was something we did a lot last year, but we hadn't done at all so far this school year. Truly, I had (have) a lot going on, and I wasn't sure I should go. I'm also trying to eat more healthful foods. But I told myself that this breakfast would be a nice way to catch up with this woman whom I view as a mentor and friend and check in with her about our mutual students.

Fast forward to lunch time, when, due to a triple-booking on my part, I didn't eat because I was busy helping a student with something he needed, followed by recess time of assisting two other students whom I had also offered to work with.

Suffice to say, it was a busy day. One of those days where I ran around nonstop, covered someone else's class, etc. We all have days like that. It was particularly hard because I had a pretty bad allergy-related headache (which I'm sure is causing a lot of people trouble right now!). I also just had a lot I needed to get done. I was stressed because I had an appointment scheduled for 4 p.m., so I'd have to rush out the door right after school instead of getting things done and feeling settled for the next day.

Fast forward to late afternoon when I received a text from the person I had an appointment with saying she had a migraine and asking if we could reschedule.

As I sat at my desk chair after school, it hit me that these situations I wasn't sure of (like breakfast) or what might usually be an inconvenience (like a rescheduled appointment) were actually God's way of preparing me for my day. My usual breakfast would have left me beyond hungry at lunch time, but the unusually large breakfast allowed me to stay full longer than I normally would. That appointment being rescheduled gave me the time I needed after school to accomplish a lot of things on my list, which made me feel a lot better.

And after that realization, I thought back to my student's words ... "Now I know this is so insignificant in the whole scheme of life and the world ... but it was really nice to see Jesus ..."

I know that breakfast and an appointment are not the most important things in the world either. Indeed, I read a blog post tonight (that led me to reading many more posts on this same blog) about a young lady in my area, a 14-year-old, who passed away from cancer today. Absolutely heartbreaking. A child dying of cancer is absolutely an important thing in this world. And I in no way mean to act like God should be spending His time worrying about my daily inconveniences.

I also think that, like my student taught me, it's okay -- dare I say, it's good -- to see Jesus answering small daily prayers, or even acting in your daily life to answer prayers you didn't even realize you needed to pray, like in my case. I do think God likes to be involved in all aspects of our lives, big and small. He has that time. He is above time. He is time.

Please join me in prayer for this young girl who died of cancer today. I don't know her or her family, but I do know her name is Katie.