Heart Hope by Olga

The phone message was from one of the young girls in our church. She needed to talk. The only problem is that I was just making a quick Wal-Mart stop before heading to church to perform my job for the Recalibrate Conference. So my message back to her was she could either meet me at church that evening or we could get together anytime the next night. Now it is confession time-- I had just finished my Quarter Pounder with cheese and was exiting the store, I ran smack dab into the girl who needed to talk. I took that as a direct God intervention to my plans--a Divine appointment. We went back into McDonalds and spent the next hour talking and praying for my young friend. As I sat there, I knew that if God had planned this appointment, He would have someone else who could step in and help with the job that I was supposed to be doing at church. How often do I miss blessings like the one I experienced at Wal-Mart by not listening when God is trying to change my plans? Lord...

It was the last leg of my trip home. I had spoken at a retreat and due to the preparation for the speaking engagement and a busy week ahead; I was looking forward to some quiet time on the plane. Occupying the window seat I thought I might be safe from having to make small talk since the lady in the aisle seat had immediately pulled out her magazine. Maybe I could just be to myself, but God had other plans in store for my afternoon when a man asked if he could sit in the middle seat.  You could tell he was a hard working man, a bit rough around the edges, with fresh growth on his cheeks and calloused hands. That part was fine, but as he eased into the seat next to mine I caught a whiff of the awful reeking smell of too much alcohol from the previous night that seemed to be emanating from his pores. He wanted to chat and so I asked where he had been and he told me he was on a quick turnaround trip just for the day to take his four year old daughter back to her mother. He lived a...

Don’t you just love it when you have Divine Appointments? Last weekend, I had several of them while attending Women of Faith and they all revolved around prayer. The first was at the dinner table, when a friend asked for us to pray for a situation with a house that she and her husband were hoping to purchase. Three of us stopped right then and there, held hands and prayed for her situation. The next morning before going into the conference, I was concerned about a medical issue with my daughter and another friend expressed concern about her son, so into the “family-friendly bathroom” we ducked to pray for each other. Later in the day while sitting on the green grass, with the bright blue sky above us eating a picnic lunch, my precious sisters in Christ suggested that we pray for my daughter’s health, so we stood, linked arms and I was bathed by their prayers. The last encounter happened during one of the afternoon sessions. While standing at the back of the room I turned to see a...