A Divine Appointment

"Life is just too short to waste one more day driving in a direction that God doesn't want us to go."--Ron Hutchraft

Last Sunday Dennis and I drove to Allenspark for breakfast at Meadow Mountain Cafe. It's not something we had planned to do; the idea struck Dennis as we were leaving the church parking lot. But first he wanted to go home, in the opposite direction, to pick up a watercolor he had painted of The Fawnbrook Inn. He planned to give the painting to our friends Mieke and Herman, owners of the Fawnbrook in Allenspark.  Now, I have to admit that for a mili-second I thought, Why can't the painting wait until another day? I'm hungry and we're going to lose 20 minutes by going back home. However, I used restraint and kept the thought to myself. We retrieved the artwork and headed to Allenspark.

By the time we got to Meadow Mountain Cafe, the place was packed. There were no seats available, save two at a table for four where two women were already seated. The cafe being as small as it is, this is not unusual. Locals are quite accustomed to sharing their table with strangers -- we've done this ourselves, a number of times -- so we caught the womens' eyes and asked if we could join them. They welcomed us and we sat down. Within a few minutes, we learned their names -- Sue and Randi -- and discovered that Randi lived in another state and had recently been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. She had come to Colorado to visit Sue in Denver and enjoy a little R&R. 

Dennis, being a cancer survivor, shared how his faith in God had helped him through his journey. Then Randi disclosed that she's a Christian and Sue chimed in that she's a Christian and, well, we  were practically having church right there in the restaurant. We prayed together, ate together, cried together and laughed together. An hour earlier we had been complete strangers.  

Does this sound odd to you? Or are you reading this and thinking to yourself, "That sort of thing has happened to me. Just when I needed encouragement (or love, or help), God sent someone my way (or sent me to someone who needed those things)." If the later is how you think, then you understand Divine Appointments. You know that there's no such thing as coincidence or karma. Good luck? Nonsense. Fortunate happenstance? Hardly. 


Randi's back home now. I got an email from her yesterday:
"I wanted to tell you how you and Dennis touched my heart and spirit last Sunday morning at the Mt. Meadow Cafe. . .Sue and I were in awe all the way to Estes, calling it a divine appointment. . .I loved sharing our stories/testimonies and hearing how the LORD is moving in your lives." 


Dennis and I echo Randi's words. What a sweet time we had with those two lovely ladies.

By the way, remember earlier I said going home took us in the opposite direction, which to me was the wrong direction? I now believe it was exactly the direction God wanted us to go.  I'll never know for sure, but I suspect the 20 minutes we spent going home to get the painting put us at the cafe at just the right time to sit with Sue and Randi. Divine Appointments are always perfectly timed.

Nancy