In A Grocery Store

Few things can be worse than the process of going through a painful divorce, especially when there are young children involved. I speak of this by personal experience, as I did my own stint in the courts back in the mid-1980s. I’m not going to pontificate on all of the details here in this blog, but at the time, it was a very rough patch in life that I happened to find myself going through. A lot of times we look back on things and decide that maybe they were not as bad as we remember, but this is not one of those cases. My memories of that time revolve around dark, dreary days that seemed to set me adrift, and it was only through God’s grace that I made it through to the other side.

Does God get involved in divorces? I can’t answer that question for anyone but myself, because I know that all situations are different. As an example, although the book of Esther in the Bible makes no mention of God; He is there on every page by the way that things happened for her. I believe that my life during my divorce replicates that situation. God was there, though I could neither see Him nor the work he was performing for me at the time. I am only cognizant of what he did for me by looking back from where I find myself today, many years later.

My lawyer had a secretary, a beautiful girl that I recognized from our small town. She was friendly, maybe a little precocious, but I had so much on my mind during those visits to his office that other than the fact that she was unusually pretty – I did not give her a second thought. As the legal battle wrangled on for many months, she eventually left his office to work elsewhere and I did not see her again.

Meanwhile I began playing the guitar for a gospel-singing group and began to really enjoy it as it was a new experience for me. It also gave me something to do on weekends and was less apt to get me in trouble than the things I had been doing. Through the songs and the sermons in the various church services we attended, little did I know that God was performing a work in my life. Some would call it maturity, but believe me, that was not it as I struggled with that part of my personality for many years afterward and continue to do so today. No, there was something spiritual happening in my life - in that place where God moves just out of sight and ostensibly behind the curtains. I cannot remember the service, though I do recall the church. The service was over and it was time for the altar-call. I went down the aisle and prayed a simple prayer: “Lord, I have made a mess of my life and I know that only You can fix it. Please do.” Probably not my exact words, but it was something like that. My point is that the prayer was sincere, from my heart, and He was listening when I prayed. This sounds simple yet I’m afraid to overstate it. Something happened in my life and it started on a cold, rainy night in a small, country church with a simple prayer that came from an earnest heart.

I ran into that pretty secretary a few nights later in a grocery store. I stopped by on the (very) (ultra) slim chance that they might stock rabbit food that a friend of mine needed. We talked for a second or two, but it was enough so that I saw her in a different light. I went home and asked my brother about her and since he knew her better than I, he ‘fixed’ us up on a date two days later. We have since been inseparable for twenty-two years as of this month. Have those years been perfect and all of the days we have spent together been filled with bliss?

For the most part… yes!

But how did it happen? How did a chance encounter at a grocery store, during the middle of the week, lead to a first date that has been followed by a life spent together? What did I do that qualifies me to have her in my life when she is so much better than me in every way? Roll your eyes and say things like ‘coincidence’ and ‘serendipity’, but I know better. It is a love that was fashioned not by fate, but as the answer of a simple, frank request to God by someone who realized there was nothing else that he could do by himself. It was a love formed out of caring by two people that trusted in God when nothing else made sense to either of them. You see, it turned out that she was also going through her own ‘rough patch’ at the time, and an all-seeing, all-knowing God looked beyond what appeared to be impossible for either of us and instead made it possible for both of us. He specializes in that particular line of work.

One of my favorite verses is found in Romans 8: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Sometimes things just look impossible. We can make a really big mess out of our lives; it is in our nature to do so. The world will fail us, friends may abandon us, and at times there does not appear to be a silver lining behind any of the dark clouds that cover us. But God always has a plan for His children. As His children, it is we who are ‘the called according to His purpose’ and we should never forget that or think about it in a careless or flippant manner. He works things out. And we are happiest when we simply trust and allow Him to do so.