The scary thing was that this whole operation happened at 5:05pm, literally minutes after I left. The van that the drug dealers came in, parked right where I had parked that day too. Pretty scary stuff. If we had been caught in that, it might have been bad (I would've been late for my ultimate game..!) but it could've been dangerous.
Thinking back on that day, I wonder how many times we have narrowly escaped danger and not even know about it. Sometimes we don't escape it. But for the most part, I can look back and say, God really has his timing for everything. Had I left a littler later, or if I took a little longer to change, or if my friend got to the office a little later than usual, we would have been caught in the middle of the chaos. I really thank God for protecting us that day!
*rebecca
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At my church back home, I used to have an amazing sound guy and setup team. They would show up early on a Sunday, clean up the stage, make sure all the chairs are setup correctly, pick up last week's bulletins, and even memorize the setting of the team knowing who stood where, which instruments should come out of which monitors and, to some degree, the proper height of each singer. I would show up, sound check and go. I showed up one Sunday morning and things weren't done because our sound guy was running late and as I was setting things up, I thought to myself stupidly 'what!? doesn't sound set itself up?'
Back at home, I remember my mom used to peel my orange for me. She would take all the peel off, individually remove the pith and even rip all the slices flawlessly without ever leaking any juice. Each time I opened the fridge after school to grab tupperware (old tofu container) containing my orange, each slice would be fully intact for maximum enjoyment. My mom was late coming home one day and left me a message saying there were un-peeled oranges in the fridge for me to eat when I came home. I made a huge mess, leaked juice everywhere and as I was cleaning up, I thought to myself 'what!? don't oranges peel themselves?'
The more I have these odd moments of realization, the more I see how everything fits together, how much I take for granted and how many things actually happen in the background in order for life to go on every single day. There are so many things beyond my control but I still try to control them. Why is that? Why is it so hard to surrender and trust that the Lord takes care of me when He already does in so many ways that I cannot even begin to fathom or comprehend?
The only answer I can come up with is that I am PRIDEFUL and need the power of the Spirit to stir HUMILITY in me.
*sam
3 comments:
When I first had the privileges/responsibilities of a G2 liscence, I also had the freedom that came with a car. I never realized I had to gas my car, endure long rush-hour traffic, and carpool old grandmas to church every sunday.
When I went on my first mission trip this past summer, I was away from close family & friends for 5 weeks. I thought I was brave, strong, independent, self-reliant...when I really felt like dying in a hot/humid land that gave me diarrhea everyday. I really needed to be humble, rely on my team, the church in Macau, and operate on God's time (not chinese time) and His schedule.
Just like the timing was perfect when the drug deal/gunshots took place AFTER you left the office, I could've been hit by three typhoons in the HK/Macau/Guongdong region (but I didn't...my team and I kept missing them as we traveled). He was definitely watching over the four Chinese-Canadian foreigners=)
and He watches over all us as we take every breath for granted.
Hey another cool "coincidence" story (not so serious and dangerous though).
Me and my friends from school has planned this for weeks. We were going to wonderland. We were suppose to meet at a bus stop near where we lived and the alternative was to meet in the subway.
So I leave my house to go to the bus stop which is not a great place to meet especially when the bus comes every 20 seconds on that street. On my way to the bus stop I buy my wonderland ticket from pizza pizza because apparently it's cheaper than buying it at the entrance. After buying my nonreturnable ticket, I arrive at the bus stop but nobody else is there.
I start to get stressed out because I didn't have a cell phone and had no spare change for a payphone so I had no way of contacting my friends. I get on the bus to the subway station anyways. After a while of sitting on the bus, I get off of my bus to get on another bus.
As I get off my friends who are in the bus right behind the one I JUST got off see me changing buses and they try getting my attention but before they knew it, their bus started driving away from me and they kept going down the same street (which is an alternative route to the subway station we were supposed to meet at).
I don't realize anything that has happened up to this point. So I continue heading towards the subway station where we were suppose to meet. By the time I arrive there, I realize that I'm early so I walk around the station. As I walk around the station, my friends somehow manage to go up to the bus terminal without seeing me or being seen by me.
Eventually they get on the go bus to wonderland leaving me behind. As time goes by and as I realized what had happened, I run into a group of people from school at the station who are also going to wonderland. I end up borrowing a phone and calling to find out what had happened to my friends. Talking to them on the phone, we plan for me to go on the next go bus and meet with them there.
So I buy a go bus ticket with the people from school who are there. They get hungry so we all go to a nearby food court to buy some food instead of standing around waiting for the bus. Because of this, when we got back to the bus terminal, we had a horrible spot in line for the bus and eventually missed the bus because it was too full.
OKAY! So long story short! Eventually me and the people I met at the bus terminal didn't go that day. The next Monday I find out all that's happened about changing the bus and not running into my friends. This, on top of the fact that we would have got on the bus if we didn't go out for food, that I wasted 5 hours that day doing nothing, and that I was stuck with a wonderland ticket and a go ticket with nobody to go with made the whole day pretty upsetting.
So of course, I pray and ask God what was up with all that happened? Why did that all have to happen? All of that really helped the situation and I really don't know what would have happened in that hopeless, upsetting scene if I didn't turn to God.
Anyways, in the end I found people to go with and I had a great time, there was less people there, I rode nearly all the rides while my friends only rode 2 =P, it was warmer that day, and a bunch of other great stories. But basically to wrap this thing up, it was really great and I was glad I didn't go the day that we planned for. So basically it was a lot of seemingly bad "coincidences" that kept me from going the first day but in the end it turned out to be better not going that day.
God is good like that. =P
Haha is this story waaaaay too long? It is a good story though isn't it? Even though it's not like the other ones. Haha oh well. Even if it's not it's too bad 'cause you already read it. =P
WOAAAA!!! Haha... Okay. That was kinda long compared to the other one. OOPS. =P Haha. Hope it's worth reading or else it'd just be a waste of time. =P
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