It was meant to be …

This story follows on from a story I recently shared on here – ‘Focusing on what matters most‘ – which you will need to read first, if you haven’t already done so, in order to make sense of what follows …

***

It is a few weeks since my adventure at the optician’s and today I am returning to collect my new glasses and contact lenses.

All the way there, I am praying that Cathy will be on the reception desk today. So I am delighted when I arrive at the branch, peer through the locked glass door, and see that she’s the one striding towards me with the keys in her hand.

Unlocking the door, she greets me warmly, as I don my facemask, cross the threshold, and sanitise my hands.

At the reception desk, Cathy checks me in, and I initiate a conversation. Both of us are wearing facemasks, and there is a clear plastic screen standing between us, so our voices are muffled. But I am determined to follow up on my last visit.

“How are you, Cathy?” I ask her, “I was here on the day the ambulance took you to hospital, after you collapsed in the kitchenette.”

She tells me how she revived in the ambulance on the way to the hospital; how she was monitored for 48 hours, before being discharged; how it turned out that the reason she had collapsed was because the pharmacist had given her too strong a dose of pain meds for her whiplash injury, and how the prescription had to be drastically modified.

“Did Andrew tell you that there was a customer praying for you that day?” I enquire, and she nods her head enthusiastically. “That was me,” I tell her. “I stood in the corridor and prayed for you, even though you were unconscious.” Her eyes are welling up. “That’s when Andrew told me you pray too,” I add with a smile.

“It was meant to be,” Cathy declares. “That’s what I told my husband when I heard about you from Andrew. We both agreed that it was meant to be; that God had arranged it so that you would be here at the exact time when He needed you to pray for me.”

She gazes into the middle distance and the conversation pauses a moment.

“How is your whiplash injury now?” I ask.

She shrugs her shoulders. “It’s definitely better than it was and I’m not grimacing anymore,” she says, “but I’ve still got some residual pain.”

I look at her through the clear plastic screen, and the oh-so-familiar surge of courage-and-compassion rises up within me. “How about I pray for you now?” I suggest.

“Yes please,” she responds eagerly.

Leaning forward so she can hear me, my voice muffled by my facemask, I look her in the eye and pray for her once more – acutely aware that, this time, she is upright, rather than lying in the recovery position on the floor. It is a simple prayer, asking God to take the pain, in the name of Jesus, and she joins me in saying a hearty, “Amen”.

She whispers her thanks and I turn to take my seat in the waiting area, flanked by rows of empty spectacle frames all along the wall to my right, while I wait for the dispensing optician to fit my new glasses …

***

Have you ever been in a situation where it was “meant to be” that you were in a particular location, at a particular moment in time, in order to pray for a particular person?

If you are a Christian, did it occur to you that perhaps God deliberately caused it to be like that?

As ever, all thoughts and reflections would be welcome in the comments below.

Image by Andre Casti from Pixabay