As we traveled last week, we had to make a few changes to our usual itinerary. We flew into a different airport, and agreed to have the rental car delivered to the place we were staying.
The car and driver were coming from one end of the island, while we were coming from the other.
We made plans of what we needed to do in the place where we landed, and set about getting them done, while watching the time for the meet up with the driver.
While I knew it was not primarily my concern, I knew that the driver, once he delivered the car, would need to get a bus or taxi back, and it would be a far way on a Sunday afternoon where public transportation would be more limited than normal. I started contemplating this days prior when I heard the plan.
As we drove on the highway, still a good ways away, I received word that he was already at the meeting spot. We quickly determined not to make an additional stop we had planned, and go straight to him.
As we got to about 15 minutes away, my sister in law, who had been driving, received a call. It was a friend who lives across the street from her, someone she had not seen in months prior, but had seen twice in the previous 24 hours, including when she had been on her way to pick us up in the wee hours of the morning.
He had just pulled out of a gas station and saw her passing by. They were both about an hour and half from where they live.
The call was on speaker and I heard him mention that he was going to the same location that the waiting driver would need to go. I asked her to check if there was a way for him to give him a ride. He said he only had room for one person, as he already had a passenger (it was the cab of a truck). I checked with the waiting driver, and he said he was alone.
After I picked up the car, and the driver was gone, my sister in law shared a part of the story that gave us chills.
Her friend had been driving, and pulled into the gas station. He explained he’d sat there waiting for a long time, for what he didn’t know. And, within a moment of when my sister in law would be passing by, he heard a voice say “go now”, and pulled out in time to see her passing by. Something that a minute before or after and they would have missed each other.
On our way, there had been so many delays. We’d gotten a much later start than we wanted. We’d stopped at a couple places too long. We had plans that we needed to change – and yet, God worked it out in such a way as to get one man from a place he was unfamiliar with to give him a straight ride, to be able to easily get home.
And, even in this, I can be reminded… God’s timing is… impeccable.
Dear Heavenly Father, there are times when we get frustrated with how things may seem to us. We may wonder why things aren’t going as quickly as we hoped. We may wonder why plans have to be changed, but, Father, we are reminded that you care about the big picture, in all things, and you work out the most minute details to make it all happen, so that we can see your hand in our lives.