Not a typical Thursday

Thursdays typically fall into the same category. I either have meetings all day long or pretty much nothing scheduled. Today fell into the pretty much nothing category. Except there was a twist. I'm still working on getting my final papers and project for school together, so I planned on staying later at church than usual. I really haven't had a full day off in a couple of weeks, so I didn't feel too guilty when I decided to go for a walk with friends in the middle of the day. The walk turned into "a walk, coffee and running errands" and I got back to church about 2 hours after leaving. No biggie.

One of my jobs is to make sure the multimedia stuff is done for Sunday mornings. I knew the choir was coming in to rehearse and wanted to get things done before they arrived so I ran upstairs to the sanctuary. Now, here's where two things happen that don't normally happen on a typical Thursday. #1. I took my cell phone with me. Most of time I leave it somewhere in the pile that is my desk, or in my purse, but today I grabbed it and put it in my pocket before heading to the sanctuary. #2. I enabled the Internet on the sanctuary computer. It sounds silly, but there have been times in the middle of worship when the computer will start updating and require an immediate restart. It's pretty embarrassing and frustrating to have the computer shut down in the middle of a worship song, so I disable the Internet access unless I know I'm going to need it. Turns out, I needed both those things tonight.

As I was finishing putting the media together, my phone beeped with this text message from a youth pastor friend "do u have a suicide hotline?" My church doesn't but I knew that there is one for the county, so I quickly did an Internet search and within a minute got the number to my friend. Then I started praying. "Lord, be with my friend. Be with their student. God give them strength." My next thought was, "Why did they text me? Why did I have my phone with me? Wasn't it interesting that I had enabled the Internet?" That's when it hit me. God's behind this all.

I sometimes forget that God is all knowing. I forget that God can orchestrate things as little as putting a cell phone in my pocket. I forget that God is the one who sees more than I see. I forget that God brings people together to share in life for a reason. Sometimes those reasons are big, as my youth pastor friend found out tonight and sometimes those reasons are small, as small as a one sentence text message "do u have a suicide hotline?". God is big, I am small. I think I like it that way.

Thank you, God, for the reminder that you are so big. I pray tonight that you will be with the hurting soul who needs your comfort, understanding and love so desperately. God, help them to know that you are there, that you are love, that you care. Thank you for bringing youth pastors into this life to walk alongside them and to care. Be the words, be the strength, be the hope. God I pray that you will just be there. Amen.