Sometimes crazy things happen when you least expect them to.
Life happens when you have other plans.
Today we had plans to head to church for our daily prayer time-the same old scheduled thing we have had this entire month.
On the way there, Julia spots an elderly woman walking with a cane and what appears to be a very large bag of groceries. In this moment, we both knew we could not go on with our normal day without helping this woman carry her groceries home. We were desperately trying to explain to her that we wanted to help her (via our best charades), when a Romanian woman walking by was able to speak enough English and Romania to tell the woman we just wanted to carry the bag for her. Sure enough, as I took the bag I realized that it was at least 12 lbs. Did I mention that it is about 80degrees at this point and the sun is relentless? I really don’t know how this little old woman was going to be able to do this today. She was wearing at least 5 layers of hot clothing and she could barely walk as it is.
So we skipped prayer time in order to help this woman, and I believe that it was God’s will for us to do this for her. When we eventually made it to her house, she invited us in to meet the other woman she lives with. We sat and “talked” (we had no translator) for a bit as they picked us cherries as a thank you. We found out that the elderly woman is 84 years old. She was about to walk a few miles in the heat of the day with a very heavy bag of groceries. But because God brought us in her path and put it on our hearts to help her, she didn’t have to do it today. By the time we left, she and the other woman allowed us to pray for them and were kissing us uncontrollably. They were so blessed to have us there to do something so simple for them. What they don’t know is that they blessed our hearts far more than we were able to bless theirs.
Through this, I learned that plans are just relative. Sometimes God has something better in store for us. We just have to keep our eyes and hearts open.
