Be careful what you ask for... you just might get it

Have you ever been the answer to someone’s prayer? Maybe you have been, and just didn’t know it. I’m guessing that the people in this story didn’t know that they were that.

A couple of days ago, Friday, I worked 7am to 4pm. I was really tired that day, and for whatever reason, it was a difficult day for me. As the day went on, I was getting more and more upset and even angry. For those of you who know me well, you should know that I am not an angry person. Even if you don’t know me that well, I don’t think that I come across as an angry person. I’m not usually like that. But I wasn’t really myself on Friday. I was praying all day that God would help me to snap out of this and get over whatever was going on. It was turning into a big pity party for me, and I was the only one attending. It wasn’t a very fun party, trust me. When the end of my shift finally came, I just wanted to go home and maybe take a nap or something. Or maybe even go beat someone up (I had a couple people in mind, but probably would have settled for just about anyone at that moment). But I had to stop and get gas before I drove home. The gas station that I normally go to was full, so I drove about a block down the street to the other one there in town.

As I was filling up my tank, I noticed that there was a man near the corner of the parking lot, standing on the side of the road, holding a sign. (My first reaction was to go beat him up, but I changed my mind.) His sign said that his vehicle broke down and he needed help. There where I work, I’ve never seen anyone standing there holding signs like that. I see it all the time in downtown Akron, but not there. And I thought that God was telling me that he was the answer to my prayer. It didn’t really make sense to me that this random guy who was broken down could somehow help me out, but that’s what I was thinking.

So, being Mr. Mechanic (that was a joke) I went up to him and asked him what was going on and how I could help. He said that his tire on his RV blew out and he needed a new one. Well, I don’t usually carry around spare RV tires in the back of my car, but I just happened to have one that day.

OK, that was a lie. But wouldn’t that be a cool story if I did? I think I would have been more surprised than he would have been. But that’s not how this went. Sorry for the distraction. Let me continue. . .

I didn’t have an RV tire with me, but I did ask him if he was hungry. He said he was fine, but maybe his buddies in the RV were hungry (I didn‘t even know that there were “buddies“ involved). He suggested that I go to the empty parking lot across the street where the RV was parked, knock on the door, and find out if they wanted anything. I’ll make this story shorter by telling you that there were three buddies in there, and they did want food. So we walked back across the street and ordered some cheeseburgers for all of them.

While we were waiting for the food to be made, I asked them what they were doing. They were traveling from Pennsylvania back to Arkansas, and they broke down here in Ohio. These guys had just come back from a gathering in Pennsylvania that sounded a lot like Woodstock. I guess there were people from all over the country that come there, and they just kind of all live together in peace, love and all that goes along with that (and probably more). Honestly, these guys kind of looked like they belonged at Woodstock (and really smelled like it too). They looked, acted, and talked like modern day hippies. They started telling me how they were all Christians and they go there specifically to spread God’s love there. They serve food there and sit around the campfires at night, building relationships with the other people there and sharing God with whoever cared to listen.

When the food came, the head guy (he just called himself Preacher) asked if I wanted to come back to the RV to join them for dinner. They said they had plenty of lawn chairs and were going to set up in the parking lot to eat. So I walked across the street to eat dinner with three hippies (there’s a sentence that I’ve never said before). The other two were named Virgil and Huckleberry. It was so cool to hear their stories and to find out what prompted them to live this kind of lifestyle-- one very different from my own. The oldest one, Preacher, said that he had a good job and big house, but decided to give it all away and travel the country in his RV wherever God wanted him to go. When he needs things, he said he just relies on God and the generosity of strangers. And he always gets where he needs to be. I spent over an hour talking and listening to these guys before getting back into my car and heading home. It was one of those moments where I couldn’t believe where I was and what I was doing. I never would have expected that my day would have included stopping at Hardee’s and buying dinner for three hippies. But it was cool. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

So at the beginning of the story, I mentioned that these guys were an answer to my prayers that day. I think just making a real connection to someone else helped take my focus off of me and on to someone else. And that was the answer to my prayers that I needed. I’ve realized that God has been answering my prayers in similar ways the past couple of weeks too.

Let me rewind about three weeks. Some of you received an email from me then, and in it I was pretty much angry and disappointed with the world and everything and everyone in it. Wasn’t too happy at that time. I don’t really apologize for that-- I am big on honesty and telling it like it is, and reaching out when you have troubles. That’s how I was feeling at the time. I don’t think that I handled it wrong, so I’m ok with that. However, I’m doing better than I was at that time. I gotta be honest, though, I have had a hard time getting over all of what has been going on.

For whatever reason, these past several weeks have been really difficult on me. As I said in my last email, I think that all of the crap that has been going on all sort of caught up to me at once, causing me start on a downward spiral. (I promise that this entry is not going to be a big downer, trust me. But I do have to recap a little, for those who are just joining us.) For whatever reason, losing my older brother was on my mind a lot more than usual, and then dealing with my sister Amy’s sickness suddenly got harder too. Plus, all of the garbage that I have been living with and trying to make sense of over the past several years all of a suddenly made less sense than ever and that became really hard to deal with, too. It never really seems to go away. Ever. Any of it. And it really sucks sometimes.

I try really hard to honor God through my anger and disappointment. I don’t think that those are sinful responses. I think that they are normal and we should accept that and maybe try to learn from them.

But I can point to three days in particular during that three week period in which I was really upset about everything. The first one was a Wednesday, about three weeks ago (when I sent the email to some of you). The second was a Sunday about a week and a half ago. And the third was the Friday that I just described. And I just realized the other day that on all three of those days, when I prayed to God for help, that he did send me help on those days, in the form of another person. Maybe his answer is not to just snap his fingers and just magically change our mindset. Could it be that when God wants to intervene in a situation, that he works through other people to do just that?

On that Wednesday (about three weeks ago) that I just described, after having a really bad day, I ran into someone, a stranger really, just on a random fluke, and we starting talking. It turns out that we both have similar senses of humor and we had each other laughing throughout our conversation. We have talked several times since then, too, and have created a real friendship there. It didn’t occur to me until just recently that maybe God had a hand in that. He knew that I was having a hard time, and he orchestrated a random meeting, with a stranger no less, that really did snap me out of the state of mind I was in. The same thing happened on that Sunday. I talked that day to another friend of mine who I hadn’t talked to in a really long time. He just kind of called me out of the blue and we were able to reconnect. And then this meeting with the hippies on Friday was the same situation. God heard my prayers, and his solution was to choose to send other people along to help-- in the form of real, authentic connections and community.

I am realizing more and more the value of building community with other people in our day to day lives. I think that it something that many of us are lacking. We go to work, come home, eat dinner, maybe talk to some of our friends or family, go to bed, and then do the same thing all over again. I think God calls us to deeper connections with people than many of us really engage in. Deeper than just “hey, how are you?” There seems to be a powerful healing component to building those real, authentic connections with other people. The Bible even talks about us being in the body of Christ, and when one part suffers, we all suffer. That to me is the definition of community. Suffering with other people when they suffer. Laughing with them when they laugh. And everything in between. I think that sometimes there is nothing more spiritual and godly than friends getting together to laugh and share what is going on.

I don’t know if its just me, but I am hardwired to build connections with other people. My hunch is that we are all like that to some extent. I can spend hours talking to someone about nothing, just talking and laughing with them. It’s funny that I can’t even sit through an entire movie most of the time, but I can talk for hours with a complete stranger about nonsense. I think that shows me that God made me that way. Don’t get me wrong. I have some great friends who I honestly believe would do anything for me if I needed it. Some of my friends have traveled long distances to see me when I needed to see them. Others have helped out in ways that I am truly humbled by. I would say that I do have those real connections with some of them. But I think it’s really cool that on the days when I needed it most, God went out of his way to set me up with some different people to remind me that he hasn‘t forgotten about me.

I’m not going to lie, though. There are still times that I struggle to stay afloat throughout everything that is going on. I guess I would ask that you would continue to keep me and my family in your prayers. A friend of mine told me just recently that he thought that, and I quote, “crap is a test.” After we laughed about how ridiculous that sentence sounds, we both agreed that there is some element of truth to that. A test is designed not only to see what you learned, but to help you learn too. If you’re never tested, you have no motivation to really learn anything. Although, to be honest, you don’t know how badly I want to hear someone say, “This is only a test. If this had been an actual emergency, the sound you just heard would have been followed by instructions . . . “

Oh well… I guess not.

So Stewart, Dan, Virgil, Preacher and Huckleberry-- have you ever been an answer to someone’s prayer? I guess now you can say you have.