Photo by permission from http://www.sxc.hu/profile/bigevil600

Yesterday I was at church for our lunch club and absent-mindedly left my briefcase at the church when I drove home. I almost got home when I realised what I had done. So I turned around and headed back to the church where those who were clearing up had found it and were about to put it in a safe place for me. Very gratefully I gathered up the bag and headed back out of the church, when my mobile phone chirped at me to tell me that I had a message, It also chirped at me to say that someone had sent me a Facebook Message.

I walked across the courtyard at the front of the church and as I did I saw one of our congregation. As I greeted her she told me that she had just sent me a text message asking me to contact her. Even before I had read the message I had been able to talk with her.

Just as I finished talking with that lady I noticed a couple nearby whom I am marrying in a couple of weeks. They were able to tell me a couple more details about the service.

I left them and headed towards our church car park. I had pulled my phone out of my pocket and noticed who had sent me the Facebook Message. As I turned a corner I almost literally bumped into that person. As we talked we realised that it would be good for him to talk with someone else. A minute later that person turned up and joined in the conversation!

I was beginning to wonder whether I should buy a lottery ticket (I didn’t). I also wondered whether I have got it wrong all these years and rather than me go to where people are I should just wait around the church and the car park and wait for them to come to me.

It was funny.

It got funnier as each person turned up on cue.

They were lighter moments in the day.

I am not claiming any supernatural intervention in what happened yesterday. I know that when I pray ‘coincidences’ happen (I might call them ‘answers’), but I hadn’t really been praying about any of those things so I can’t say that they were answers to prayer. I don’t often pray for car parking spaces (unless I am running late and it’s important that I am somewhere) but sometimes they turn up in front of me and I am grateful.And perhaps we need to be grateful and acknowledge those moments as blessings. When they happen, to whom are you grateful?

Life throws enough bleak and dark moments at us that we need lighter moments (in both sense of the word) to help us through.

We also need to recognise that God is as much with us in the dark as in the light (but it’s sometimes harder to see him in the dark) so remembering our lighter experiences helps to reassure us that he’s there.

Be blessed, be a blessing