Late one night, I was rushing through a bookstore with my three little girls. In the blink of an eye, a boy snatched my purse and ran. Not wanting to leave my girls unprotected I had no choice but to watch my possessions disappear into the rainy darkness.
Early the next morning my husband Ken and I went to the bank to change our accounts. We were met by a friendly teller named Natalie. As she worked with us she noticed our street name and told us how her family used to live on our street but at one point had to move and now couldn’t afford to return. She went on to tell us that she now faced an hour long commute to get to work in the morning. Seeing an opportunity, we offered to pray with her for God to provide. Her immediate response surprised us, “Pray for me to get pregnant!” She went on to explain that if God could give her anything, that was it. She and her husband had been trying for years unsuccessfully and it was emotionally consuming them. Her childlike faith made us feel so privileged to pray with her right there in the middle of that crowded city bank.
We continued to pray whenever we passed by and a few months later needed to go into the branch for some service. As we entered the bank, a woman shot across the busy lobby. It was Natalie with the news that she was 3 months pregnant and that God had done it!
The story doesn’t end there. Since our girls had witnessed the shock of having something taken so forcefully, we asked God to show them His power in response. Within 10 days of the incident we got a call from the boy’s parents who had discovered my purse in his room. They wanted to make things right and asked to meet us in a public place to return everything. When we met they shared their concerns for their son. So with his parent’s authority we were able to pray together for God to intervene in his life.
God can so easily take something negative and random like a theft and use it to touch the lives of people like Natalie, her husband, their baby, and this boy’s family. I exhort you to purposefully watch for opportunities to release His transforming power in the midst of darkness.
— Marilyn Schuler
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Reply #1 on : Wed June 18, 2008, 15:36:46