I
had a newspaper route for ten years and I encountered all kinds of people deep
into the night. A lot of them became friends. I looked forward to seeing them
on a regular basis, I guess largely because I knew they looked forward to my
arrival; and that was the main reason why I enjoyed my job. I was always
welcome and actually ‘sought after’. Most everyone anxiously anticipated
my arrival; the store clerks were happy because the customers would be happy,
and the customers were happy to finally get their daily paper, even if it was
late, at least most of them were. I had over thirty store accounts and
boxes to reach and even if I didn’t leave the dock before 3, I still was
finished with my route by 5am. I’m laying the groundwork for all the reasons
why I was in a hurry, not just a hurry ‒ a BIG hurry. And even though I
used my radar detector religiously, I still have copies of the speeding tickets
to prove it!
But
you know what they say about schedules being made to be broken. Even though I
had my blinders on and kept my focus on my job; there are people who
become stranded and sometimes one has to take into consideration the gravity of
a need. I never said, “No.” to anyone who asked me for a ride. Even if
they had to hang with me for the rest of my route before I could drop them off.
Even that didn’t happen too often because my route covered the furthest
south and the furthest east of Rockford
and began and ended downtown. For a while, I had two routes that also stretched
out to the farthest west and north! So I really had little reason to refuse
someone a ride if it was truly needed. I met a lot of interesting people that
way; and I always made sure they knew that God was the one who saw their need
and who put me there just at the right time and that, as it was usually the
case, if I had left the dock five minutes earlier or five minutes later, we
would have missed each other.
One
winter we had a lot of snow, and one particular night, it was piling up all
around me. I had to fill a box at a motel on 11th Street and the
wind sweeping down the street from the north was so cold I could barely stand
to be out of my van for the thirty seconds it took me to insert the key and
fill the box. The sidewalks were impassable, and the snow plows were having
difficulty keeping the streets cleared so that even with tall boots, a person
would have trouble finding a suitable pathway.
I was genuinely surprised to see her emerge
from the lobby as I was filling the newspaper box. She was scantily clad in
high heels and a designer jacket. She leaned into the wind and trudged out into
the street. I was still trying to warm my hands up in front of the heater vent
in my van as I passed her by. I was glad that my van was high enough off the
ground to glide over the piles of snow that were steadily getting deeper
between the tire tracks in the street. To be able to make a new path into the
parking lots, I did a lot of coasting without my brakes. I filled the box at
Burger King in this manner even though getting in and out of the parking lot
took extra time because I always went all the way around the building and came
out the other side and I had to make my own path through the snow. She walked
up to my van and asked as clearly as she could with frozen lips, “Do you ever
give people rides?”
I
said, “Yes, I do give people rides.” She was very glad, and so was I
because I couldn’t imagine anyone walking in that cold. And you know, sometimes
there are appointments in life and I knew we had encountered one because
I only had two more boxes to do and the second one was exactly two houses away
from where she lived!
I pulled in to do the first box and when I got
back in the van she said, “I can tell by the music playing on your radio that
you’re a Christian.”
I
nodded.
Then
she asked, “Will you pray for me?”
I
went past the last box because I had to turn around anyway and then she said,
“You can let me off here.”
I said, “Okay, what do you want to pray
about?”
She
said, “I want God to help me make a decision to do something I know I’ve needed
to do for a long time. I need to change my life.”
I
said, “God will not only do that for you, but He will make it look easy.
Amen.” God dropped that special faith down into my spirit and I had perfect
faith to believe that He would do it. Hallelujah! Nothing was ever said about who
she was, or what she did indeed want God to do for her, but to me, she was
the ‘Prostitute Who Came in From the Cold’, and shortly after that I
told my pastor about my idea for the book series, number two of which is in the
kiln of the fire of the everlasting love of God Almighty, Savior of all mankind
and especially anyone who will humble themselves and call upon His name. And JESUS is His name. Hallelujah!
Experience salvation like you've never seen it before!
No comments:
Post a Comment