This week, my good friend and I have been talking about resting and sensing that God was calling us to truly rest.
As women who are constantly doing something, resting can be a challenge, but we recognize that if we are in a season of rest, that God likely has something in store that He knows we will have needed rest before hand.
We were even discussing the analogy of grass in the winter. As I paused long enough and looked at my neighbor’s grass, I noticed something. Our shared gardener had not come by since mid November, and in the last two months, our grass has not needed mowing. It was resting. It wasn’t dead. When the spring arrives, it will be growing like weed, and will go back to needing the gardener’s weekly visits.
As I woke up Friday morning, I sensed the word ‘rest’ very strongly. I started looking around my home, thinking of all the things I needed to do – do I need to even rest from that?
As I sat contemplating what ‘rest’ meant, I debated with myself that my usual walk was a form of rest – so I could do that.
As I walked, I continued to ponder what resting looked like, I saw the benches and thought ‘no way am I gonna sit there’. The real feel temperature was 20 degrees.
As I kept walking, I noticed a woman carrying more bags than what the typical walkers do. I reasoned, maybe she was on her way to work. I passed her again, and determined if she was on her way somewhere, she wouldn’t still be in the park – but kept on walking.
As I got to the other side of the park, there was a bench, and I got the sense ‘rest’. I looked at the name on the bench and saw that it was very close to my maiden name – so I sat there.
As you can imagine, there was a lot of internal conversation. Lord, why am I sitting here? It’s really really cold. My eyes started leaking, out of their own will. I don’t think I was crying, and yet, water was running down my cheeks.
Within a few moments of sitting there, the lady with the many bags stopped by a bench, a little ways from me. And I knew, it was her that I was to talk to.
As I continued to debate with God, I asked that if I were to talk to her, that she would approach me. She had been talking the whole time I’d passed her – and I assumed she was on the phone. From where I sat, I could hear her speaking.
A few minutes later, she started walking again and would be within a few feet of me, so I got up. I asked if she was ok. She responded that she was fine. Somehow I knew that I wouldn’t be sitting there if she was fine. I asked a different question. I asked if there was something I could do for her. Her need was far bigger than I was capable of – but, I offered to pray for her.
While I couldn’t provide for her need, I know a God who can.
He had given me the directive long before I even got to the park, so when the time came, I would act on it – even having me sit in the freezing cold for a moment, so a woman would know that God saw her and her need.
I walked away from the interaction completely blown away.
I may never see the outcome of my prayer, but I do pray that God answers quickly for her – would you join me and praying that God supplies all her needs?
Dear Heavenly Father, sometimes obedience can be so hard, especially when it does not seemingly make sense to us. Would you soften our hearts so that we may be able to hear you and our instructions from you?