“Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
– Psalm 37:4
It’s been at least 15 years since I last saw my friend Caren. In fact, we lost touch for about nine years after we both moved. I was sad to lose contact with her, but accepted the fact that sometimes friendships are for a season, and felt grateful for the many ways God had used this beautiful woman in my life. She was an inspiration to me and I knew I would never forget her.
I discovered that our season of friendship was not over when we were reunited. Our daughters actually reconnected first through the Internet and eventually brought us back together. We kept in touch by phone and email for over a year and I really enjoyed having her back in my life.
I had hopes of seeing Caren again one day, but didn’t expect it to be any time soon since we lived so far apart and finances were a hindrance. Therefore, I was very surprised and excited when she contacted me to say she was coming to visit me. Her son had asked what she wanted for her birthday and she said she wanted a plane ticket to come visit me. I felt so special. Of all the things she could have chosen and she chose to see me. Wow!
I readied one of the girls’ rooms for Caren to stay and made plans to drive to the airport to get her. When the day finally arrived, it occurred to me as I was driving to the airport that it would have been so nice if I had gotten some flowers to put in the room where Caren was staying. I know that she loves flowers and it would have added a cheerful, welcoming touch that she would have genuinely appreciated. I regretted that I hadn’t thought of it sooner, but had no time to stop for them now.
Within five minutes of that thought, I got a call from my daughter Hannah. She wanted to let me know that our neighbor had just stopped by to bring a beautiful arrangement of flowers. I was stunned. A coincidence? If so, it was an amazing one to me, but I didn’t believe it was. In the eight years that I’ve known this neighbor, she’s never brought us flowers.
I felt an overwhelming sense of God’s personal love for me and it brought me to tears. It was just a little thing, I know. I had not, in fact, even asked for it. It seemed to me, however, as if He was saying, “I heard you wanted this and I just wanted you to know how special you are to me and how much I love you, so I sent you some flowers.”
It got me to wondering how many gifts God has sent to me along the way that I’ve missed in my pre-occupation with myself. Fortunately, I didn’t miss this one, though, and they were the loveliest flowers I have ever received.