A God Thing

 “…pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”  James 5: 16b (Transformation Study Bible)

Last Saturday, I had one of those situations come up that can only be called a “God thing.” I have had them before, but this one is still on my heart. I was cleaning the house, and I heard a text coming in on my phone. I looked at it and saw an instant message from Mary Odom. She was the Guidance Counselor at the school where I first taught. She had been there for us when Donnie died. She came over to my sister-in-law’s and talked to Donelle and told her journaling might help. She later led the ESL training that I use to work with people at church who want to learn English.  Mary was also instrumental in me going to the Literacy Missions Conference and getting more ideas for working with ESL. She always wanted me to work with Internationals through the Piedmont Baptist International Fellowship, too. If it hadn’t been for Mary, I would never have done it. I have been a Friend Family for Internationals for several years now, and have met some wonderful people.

Let me go back to the “God thing”. I saw on my phone that Mary wanted to know if I had heard the good news. She had just gotten $100,000 from a Federal Government Lottery. She told me that when they delivered her money, she saw my name on the list. She asked me if I had heard about it. I figured, since it was Mary, I could believe it. She gave me a link, and an official picture of the administrator came up on it. The administrator sent me a list of questions to answer and a picture of the document showing my name on the list of winners. I was supposed to win $150,000. I was getting really excited. I fell for the whole con and filled out the info. I even sent Mary a text telling her we should get together to celebrate. Then a text came from this lady, Angela, saying I would have to agree to pay for the cashier’s handling of the money. The fee was $900 some dollars and some cents. That is when I finally caught on to the scam.

I called Mary and sure enough it was a scam. But here’s where the “God thing” comes in. I explained to Mary what had happened. She said it was a shame, but through this bad thing, God had used my call to help her. She said her husband’s 90^th birthday party was that afternoon, and she didn’t know if she had the strength to go through the day. She has is use a walker now and is weak. She said he has dementia, and she wasn’t sure if it would be one of his good days or not. She was also feeling like she doesn’t have a ministry for God anymore. I told her how much she had meant to me and had helped me.  I also reminded her that she could pray for all of us.  I prayed for her, and I started crying while I was praying. I prayed for God to give her strength and help her feel His comfort.  She said she was so glad I called, and she knew it was God who had led me to get in touch with her.

So you see, good can come out of bad, but don’t trust anybody who asks you for money in a text without checking with them first. Also, like I have learned in my lessons from The Call to Follow Christ, when someone asks you to pray for them stop and pray on the spot.