When my phone rings and I see one of my sons’ names on the caller ID, I assume one of three things has happened: 1) something really good; 2) something really bad; or 3) my babysitting skills are needed.
My sons are wonderful, but they don’t typically call to just chat. That’s why when my phone buzzed one night a couple of months ago and I saw it was my son in California, alarm sirens blared in my head.
His good news calls have usually been to announce a baby on the way, but they’d just had a baby in October. He wouldn’t ask us to travel 2,500 miles to babysit, so in my mind, only the “really bad news” option remained. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest, but as it turned out, that was a total waste of stress hormones.
Andy was, in fact, calling to share some better-than-good news: he had accepted a new job in Columbus, Ohio, and they would be leaving/escaping California in just a few weeks.
I know Ohio may seem like a long way away to some of you, but when your kid has lived on the other dadgummed side of the continent for eight years, Ohio is close.
We didn’t even know Andy was looking for a new job. Of course we didn’t, because he didn’t TELL us. So his big news was a big surprise, and a very happy one, for it meant that he, his wife and their four adorable kids would soon be living within driving distance.
When I got off the phone, I felt like my head might spin off my shoulders. I could scarcely process it. I’d given up hope that my son would ever leave the gorgeous weather and job he loved in Silicon Valley.
I’d even slowed down my relentless prayer campaign on the subject. I know God is patient and longsuffering, but I figured He had to be as tired of hearing that particular prayer as I was of praying it.
I had resigned myself to a reality I didn’t like, and then—BOOM!—that reality suddenly changed. In one call. On a normal night. While I was sitting there in my jammies watching Netflix.
You know, the Bible is full of stories about people’s lives being instantly, radically, gloriously changed in a moment.
Moses was out in the wilderness one day, tending his sheep like he’d been doing for 40 boring years, when God suddenly spoke and drafted him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the Promised Land.
Peter, Andrew, James and John were doing what fishermen do on a normal workday when Jesus walked up asked them to follow Him. They abandoned their nets and began a life they surely never expected or imagined.
Another man began his day doing what he always did—screaming, cutting himself, running amongst the tombs, and terrorizing the locals. But then Jesus showed up, freed him from demonic torment, and sent him home completely transformed.
Then there’s the lady who’d endured a humiliating health issue for 12 years and had “endured much at the hands of many physicians” (Mark 5:26). No offense to any of my docs who may be reading this, but I kind of know how that feels. But one day she heard Jesus was in town, so she pushed through the crowd, touched His garment and was instantly healed.
Nobody wants the pain that precedes the miracle, but we all want amazing God-stories like these. Maybe today will be your day. You may have stopped hoping, but that doesn’t mean God has stopped working.
As I was recently reminded, when we least expect it, a prayer we no longer have the heart to pray may be answered.