Today when I opened my emails I received an email from a dear friend who is a missionary serving in Australia working among Mandarin speaking students and scholars. They have been friends for decades and we served together for a while in the mission in Hong Kong and Macau. Their email contained a prayer request for their 30 year old daughter, a mother of three small children who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma – a serious cancer that attacks the lymph glands all over the body. The next immediate email was from another friend who was one of our teachers and a missionary who had a profound impact on me when we met and was used by God to help shape my understanding of my calling to serve as a missionary, in particular, as a theological educator on the mission field.. He is now back in the States and he wrote to say that he and his wife were going to take a few days for a prayer retreat and wondered if there was anything that we would like for them to pray about. My immediate reaction was to forward the first email and ask for their prayers.
Another event happened this morning when I went to the eye clinic to have some tests done. The person who was running the test was a young single mother. We got talking and pretty soon, maybe because she discovered that I had been a pastor, she was asking me some questions about some challenges she was having with her young son. During one point in our conversation she said, “I am so grateful that you came in today.” She only works three days a week. I originally scheduled the test for yesterday, but had missed the appointment and so had rescheduled for this morning. If I had come yesterday, kept my appointment, she wouldn’t have been there.
Coincidences? Synchronicity? It’s obvious these events are “synchronous” – i.e. occurring at the same time. And some people might see all of this as mere coincidence, but I saw something deeper. I saw them as examples of how God can use “synchronicity” to create healing, helping relationships. They were for me “holy” moments.
I often wonder how many of these holy moments, these opportunities to be present and to make a difference, I miss in life. Usually it is because I haven’t been paying attention. I’m not present to the moment or the person or the event that is taking place. I am reminded of something that writer Frederick Buechner once said: “Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye or a lump to your throat because they are signs that the holy is drawing near.”
These experiences of “synchronicity” got me thinking about the church. It reminded me of the importance of being there for one another. Now, these two missionary families don’t know each other and might never meet in this life, but they do share a kinship in Christ and also some shared experiences and I know that my friends, Chet and Dolores, will pray for the other couple and their daughter and her family. They are there for them. And the young mother somehow felt encouraged and strengthened because of her conversation with another believer. My being there, showing up, made a difference in her life.
Being there for one another, showing up, seeing, making connections, is something that can work miracles. How many of us have had someone say to us in a particularly difficult time in their life – “I am glad that you were here”? Sometimes, it is simply a matter of being present and not saying anything. It is simply being there at the same time.
I find these moments, when they happen and when I am aware of them, examples of what Cathleen Falsani, in her book, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace, calls “Gracespotting”. They are moments of grace because they are unexpected gifts. They give me an opportunity to love and care and, in a small way, be a reminder of God’s care and love. I hope that you too have these experiences of Gracespotting in your life. Peace.
