Timing Is Everything

"Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, Sweetness to the soul and health to the bones" Proverbs 16: 24.

For 14 months I clerked at a small combination grocery/hardware store. On both ends of Commercial Street, the store's location, there were churches but their people very seldom came in. The regular clientele were the town's more unsavory residents and we often had to call the police because of fighting in the street or a drunken or drugged customer making trouble. I worked from 2:00 pm to 10:00 pm closing.  As the only Christian working the closing shift, I was alone. Every day I worked, either a co-worker or a customer spoke Jesus' name as an expletive or a derogatory adjective. When I once commented on the language, a customer complained to my boss I was 'preaching'  and I was told to stop.

(I know God kept me safe while I was there & I was able to do some very edifying witnessing.)

One night, driving to work, I was feeling very depressed about my job. Talking to God about the struggle of working at there, I asked God to show me another Christian. This particular night I needed encouragement. I needed to know there were Christian brothers and sisters in this town. I began my shift trusting God heard my prayer and I waited for the Christian He would send in.

No Christians came at all. I had given up on God answering my prayer. I wanted to go home and wash the world off me.

It was after closing time but as long as a customer was in the store we couldn't lock the doors. My co-worker and I were trying to get the last customer out so we could lock up and go home. Before the one left, a husband and wife came in wanting some meat from the deli. We both stifled groans and my co-worker walked back to he deli, the woman following while telling what they wanted. I stood behind the counter as the husband wandered around looking at items.

That's when I saw his T-shirt said, JESUS--The ONLY WAY with a stylized arrow pointing upwards.

I asked him, "Do you believe what your shirt says?"

He looked down to read it then looked up and said, "Absolutely."

I asked him where he went to church and he mentioned a local church in the next town over which I knew taught the Bible. When I explained where my husband and I go, he knew of our church also. In fact the parents of members of our church attend his church. In addition to that, they had been to our church to play volleyball. 

I couldn't stop smiling as I rang up their purchase and thanked them for coming in. I didn't tell them that they were God's answer to a prayer. That joy was between me and God. 

• It was after-hours. 
• We should have been closed.
• I should have been at home.

That was God's perfect timing.
Praise the Lord!

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