My day job sometimes gets in the way of blogging, but it also provides some good blogging fodder from time to time.  Take for instance what happened to me and Michelle the other night.

God has called me to pastor the church I love.  One of our precious members suffered a stroke a couple days ago, and Michelle and I were called to the hospital.  We arrived at the busiest ER in the city around 8PM only to be overwhelmed by the mass of people waiting to be seen.  Sick and injured people were sprawled out from one end of the large waiting room to the other.  The medical staff seemed to be overwhelmed with the amount of people who needed their attention.  Getting someone’s attention so that Michelle and I could go into the ER was not an easy task.  We waited quite a while.

While we were waiting, we saw someone we knew – someone we hadn’t seen in years.  He and his brother were escorted quickly back into the ER, and we heard him mention that his father, Ted, was back there.  Ted used to be our neighbor, and we had interacted with him a lot over the five years we lived across the street from him.  He is an older, single man who has struggled with his health for some time.  We used to take him meals, help him with his yard work, and help tutor his son in math – all in the attempt to be good neighbors and to share the love of Christ with him.  After moving away and then returning nearly three years later to another neighborhood, we lost contact with Ted.  But as the Lord would have it, the night we were at the overcrowded ER to visit one person, it just so happens that Ted was there too.  Coincidence or sovereignty?

I ended up spending some precious time with the woman I had come to see that night, but Michelle and I were also able to reconnect with an old neighbor and his sons – all of whom are in need of the saving grace of Jesus.

I think I’ll keep my day job!