"Last Five Minutes" Resolution

You know how, in some artfully drawn suspense movies, there is inevitably some brilliant scene encompassing the last five minutes of the film which resolves a cliffhanger and all the loose ends in one fail swoop?

I feel as though I have lived just such a scenario this week.

Pursuing rather mundane business in Tennessee in a storm, I instead found renewed faith and fulfilled meaning as I unexpectedly played a supporting role in a quite real, bracing, emergent medical event in the life of a dearly loved friend. It was not my purpose, my story, my concerns that I ended up caring about on this trip: it was hers.

While on the phone with me on the very afternoon I arrived in Tennessee, my sweet friend suffered a stroke. For this twenty-six year old mother of a sweet four year old whose husband is serving his second year of a tour in Iraq, this stroke was completely unexpected. Thankfully, it was relatively small, and though she clearly has a battle ahead of her, she will emerge brilliantly polished from the efforts of this refining fire. And by the grace of God and the hard work of so many who love her, her husband is returning from the sands of the Middle East to be at her side imminently. As it should be. Tonight, finally, for my friend, the calm after the storm is dawning.

And so is the "last five minutes" resolution for me.

Sometimes I forget that every gesture, every decision, every moment we breathe and love and live on this planet has meaning beyond what we can see or tangibly experience. Often, we are not able to or capable of noticing - reaping - the seeds we sow among those we love or even perfect strangers we come into contact with each day.

The blessed tall, thin gentleman at the gas station near Nashville who gracefully held the door open for me in the rain ~ how that touched and comforted me as I drove, and drove, and drove to be with my friend in the hospital.

The delightfully rotund funny man at the Hertz-Rent-A-Car who made me chuckle by personally denoting the towns I should "definitely" visit on my map of Tennessee with a fluorescent marker. By the time he handed the map back to me, it was awash in color ~ he had marked almost everything. I told him I loved his hometown pride. I think I made his day. He blushed and said, "Thank you, Ma'am" and instantly, I became smitten with Tennessee.

But more than anything, this trip nudged my heart back where it belongs. Back to the important things. The critical elements in life. That which MATTERS. Back to listening to God even when what He is telling me doesn't seem to make much sense to my arrogant, befuddled mind. God had a clear and miraculous hand in my being in Tennessee at the exact moment of my friend's medical crisis. God knew it would seem strange to me to fly out there, alone, in a hurricane, just to complete one part of a business deal.

But He knew there was a far greater purpose. He knew there would be a far greater meaning. And that He used me, even in the teeniest of ways in which I found myself used for His greater purpose this week in my friends' life, elevated my soul even as it humbled the rest of me. I have never before felt so at peace as in the obvious presence of the Lord. And it was while praying and crying, alone in my car, pulled off onto a center median on Highway 40E ~ somewhere in stormy Tennessee, that His presence overcame my agenda, calmed my worries, and reminded me of the awesome power of God to work in unexpected and odd ways.

God knew, you see, knew how the last five minutes would wrap up and resolve.

It is quite phenomenal to be able to view the plotline of God's crafting from the vantage of hindsight and realize you are standing on the other side of a miracle that unexpectedly involved you. And here all you thought you were doing was foolishly challenging fierce weather for rather unsatisfying reasons. But what you were really doing was playing a part in the "Last Five Minutes" Resolution of a wholly unrelated storyline. One much more important than anything I had ever planned.

And one, I am filled with confident joy, will be a happy ending.

Who knew that Tennessee promised such precious lessons of life, love, loyalty, and purpose? Who knew that those things which motivated me to come were not the things which became my reason for being there? Who knew that I could be used for Christ's peace when I was least prepared? Who knew that miracles still happen right in front of your eyes? Who knew that love becomes more potent with trials? Who knew that flying into a hurricane was the price of admission into the powerful orchestration of God going on in the life of a friend?

Lest we forget ~ everything we do, everything we are, we say, we offer, we give ~ everything has the power to change hearts and effect lives of other human beings for the purpose of God if we seek His purpose over our own. Everything can be a blessing and work for the good of the Lord if we open our eyes and focus our hearts.

I am home. In awe. In wonder. In gratitude. And seeing the world with a quite crisply re-focused heart.