always divine

Two quick stories of God wowing me the last few days ...

• One morning I headed to a local cafe to read and pray and was settled into my window seat with my chai tea. There are lots of characters around Paia so it's not necessarily unusual for some kind of ruckus to occur ... anytime. That particular morning there was a woman COMPLETELY out of sorts though, and causing an extraordinary commotion in the cafe. I was kind of in my own little world, but it got so noisy and I could hear the desperate exasperation of the cafe owner attempting to shut the lady up. Next thing I know she is yelling, "Well I'm a manic depressive! Do you have any idea what that is?!" among other things, to which the poor employee says no. I was sitting there rolling my eyes at God, feeling sick in my stomach, but finally I said from my corner, "Hey, my dad has that. I know what that is." Crazy loud lady practically leaps out of her skin with joy. (Kinda felt like she would've whipped out a gun if no one had known what bipolar is - she was intense.) So I walked over and sat down and I could see the relief on the owner's face as I brought a calming presence to the situation. Amy had recently moved to Maui from Las Vegas where her ex and two little girls were still living. She poured out her entire life story with breaks to sprint outside to check on her poor dog locked in her car - "She's only acting so nuts cause she can sense that I'm nuts - once I calm down she'll be okay." (uh-huh, and maybe if she was outside instead of sweating to death without food or water she'd be okay too ...) She told me how important it is to tell my dad that I love him, horror stories from her own illness, and how important her Christianity is. She hugged me when I said I was a Christian too, but her distorted view of God made me feel sick. I don't know what came out of it, but I know I was in that place for a reason and it continues to amaze me just how intricately God orchestrates our lives. I need to be obedient in the "small stuff."
• Last night I was having a fabulous conversation with my roommate, and eventually we were pouring out our hearts about abortion and how passionate we are to see it come to an end. We were saying how we could both just bawl every time the topic comes up, when another girl walked in. We caught her up on the content of the conversation and she starts talking about her huge heart for intercession and all that God taught her at The Call this past summer. Turns out she had been fasting yesterday about abortion, and feeling very lonely in her desperation for the urgency to end abortion. Then she "just happened" to walk in on us discussing that ... one of the issues heaviest on both of our hearts as well. This was probably one of those "had to be there" kinda things ... but once again, in my eyes it was a divine appointment. I am so stoked for the three of us to lead an intercession time with the DTS or maybe the whole base focused on abortion. Even MORE stoked to see it come to an end, to see people come out of shame, to see the value of human life restored in our nation and WORLD!!!