Friday’s Favorite

Saturday evening I decided I just couldn’t muster the strength to go to church Sunday morning.  Well, about 9:00 pm my oldest daughter calls (as she does every night) and said, “So I’ll pick you up at 9:15 tomorrow morning for church.”  I hesitated…but agreed.  Now she lives a distance from me and for the past few Sundays she’s driven out here to go to church with me.

I set my alarm for 6:00am.  With all my medications, eating, showering… it takes me quite some time to ready myself to go anywhere.  I was ready ay 9:15 but she wasn’t here.  So I sent her a text message that I was going to start walking (it’s only 2 1/2 blocks away).  I didn’t get too far when she picked me up and we arrived just in time to greet a few people.  After Pastor made the announcements for upcoming events, one of the elders wives stood up and said “I have an extra ticket to the Gaither Homecoming Concert tonight, if anyone would like to go, check with me after the service”.  My daughter looked at me and said “Mom??”  I shook my head no and told her she should go because the concert was in the city. 

Our worship service was a blessing as usual, as the entire church body is filled with the Lord’s love…I am sure our voices raised in praise is sweet to our Lord.  Pastor’s message inspired me to study 2 Peter further.  After our service we always gather for coffee, juice and snacks while we just share our bond in Jesus Christ.  As I started toward the kitchen window to ask for coffee, the elder’s wife with ticket walked up to me, looked me in the eye… “Stephanie would you like to go to the Gaither concert?”  I looked over my shoulder at my daughter “Did you say something?” I asked her.  “No…I just prayed.”  Then the elder’s wife stated “See, God wants you to go, and my husband suggested I ask you” and handed me the ticket.

I’m going to shorten this before it starts to bore all of you.  They drove me to the concert, escorted me patiently into the Center and helped me find my seat.  My seat was not even in the vicinity of theirs.  So, here I am meandering through a long row to find the one seat left that was empty.  I sat down just as the music started.  Oh what a joy, I felt all my pain leave as my heart sang in unison with the music.  After the opening choruses, the woman sitting next to me reached over, touched my arm and softly spoke “You’ve been going through a lot lately, but the Lord is going to bring joy from it”.    WOW!  Goose bumps head to toe, tears running down my face and a sense of overwhelming love poured over me.  She handed me a napkin and we began a conversation in between songs.  Astounding as it may sound, we are like 2 peas in a pod.  We traded e-mail addresses, blog site information, tears of joy, napkins, hugs and words of encouragement.  As this beautiful Gaither Homecoming Concert was ending, she introduced me to her son sitting to the right of her.  Then she told me, he decided to trade seats with her after they got there so he could be closer to the end of the row.  She wasn’t even supposed be sitting next to me, I wasn’t suppose to sitting in the presence of hundreds of  brothers and sisters worshiping the Lord at a Gaither concert either.   Right before she walked away, she stuck something into my blouse pocket, turned and said “Get yourself a CD.”