God Drives a Tow Truck (11 page)

2 Chronicles 6:

¹⁹
Yet, LORD my God, give attention to your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence.

The voice on the other end of the phone quivered, “I was just praying that someone would call and offer me a job. And then you called.”

I have been the happy receiver of answered prayer, but I don’t recall
being
an answer to prayer very often. After working as a contract Occupational Therapist (OT) for a couple of years, I realized that I could strike out on my own, and start my own business contracting directly with the school districts. I knew nothing about running a business, but as had become painfully obvious; most of what I accomplished in my life was in areas I knew nothing about. So I learned how to legally become a corporation, and happily discovered that it was very easy- just give it to my financially astute husband to figure out. I merrily went to the principals in various schools and offered my contract services at a far lower overall rate than it would cost them to employ a therapist. Most of the smaller schools didn’t need a full time employee, and by contracting services, they avoided the high cost of employee benefits, sick days, etc.

I soon had more contracts than I could handle myself, and saw the need for employees. For much of the work, I could use Certified Occupational Therapy Assistants (COTA), and my job would then shift to supervision rather than direct client treatment. In that way, I could still work my ideal ten hour week but serve several school districts.

However, I did not want to pirate COTAs from other businesses, so I wasn’t quite sure how to find employees. I was a small corporation, and not highly profitable at first, so advertising was out of the question.

While mulling this problem over, I met someone who had just had their house professionally painted. It had been beautifully transformed. They told me that the painter, Teri, had been meticulously careful, and cheap! They had never known someone to work with such care and dedication to her work.

We had been considering repainting our house, but it was prohibitively expensive. I took Teri’s number and tucked it away. Then I continued my quest of trying to find a COTA that would do contract work for me.

I sat in my living room one afternoon, buried under paperwork and wishing I had someone to help me. The little slip of paper with the house painter’s name sat on the counter nearby. Head aching, and knowing I had little time to finish before my baby woke from his nap, I kept glancing at the paper. I didn’t know why, but the need to call that number
now
kept nagging at me.

Finally, I laid aside my work and went to the phone. I am not normally a procrastinator, but despite having hours of work left for my business, I felt the most important issue to deal with now, was to find out how much it would cost to have the house repainted. I dialed the number and asked for Teri.

The young woman’s voice was very soft-spoken, sweet and gentle. I told her about the need for a painter and asked her fees. Then I asked her to tell me a little bit about herself.

“Well, I am painting houses right now, but that isn’t what I went to school for. In fact, when you called, I had been praying. I have never worked in my field because I was afraid. I have no experience and it is really hard to find a job, especially when you are just starting out. I was just praying that God would show me just the right job with just the right person.”

Being a new Christian, I was delighted to talk with a fellow believer. I assumed that if she were in prayer, she must be a woman of faith.

“What is your field?” I asked.

“Most people haven’t heard of it,” she answered, “I am a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant.”

I stared at the phone. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen outside of dime store novels.

“You are looking for work?” I asked.

“Yes, but I have no experience. And I don’t really know if I could do it since I never have. I am pretty frightened, and that’s why I have been painting houses.”

This is not the ideal employee, I thought. I had never supervised anyone, and I certainly didn’t

want an insecure, untrained person to be my first employee.

“Why are you looking for COTA work now?” I asked.

Teri had recently come out of an abusive relationship with her father. She had been living on her own, and sadly landed into other abusive situations, with many of the problems that attended such a life. Her father, now in failing health, had asked her to return to help care for him. She said she had learned to forgive him, and understood that her insecurities and fears of starting the career she had trained for stemmed from wounds he had inflicted on her young psyche. She knew that to fully heal, she had to find the courage not only to tenderly and even lovingly help her father, but to become what she had trained to become.

“I was just praying that someone would call and offer me a job. And then you called.”

My heart was skipping beats, the way it does before going into cardiac arrest. If this wasn’t God’s prompting, I don’t know what is.

“Well, that is pretty amazing,” I told her, “Because I am calling to offer you a job… as a COTA.”

Teri rewarded my huge leap of trust by becoming one of the most hardworking, devoted employees I ever had. She required close supervision for the first year, but she always did exactly what I asked, to the very best of her ability. She was not the most gifted COTA I had ever known, but no one loved the children they worked with more.

She remained my employee for all the years that I owned my business until we moved away, and I dissolved the business. Perhaps more than anyone I have ever known, Teri taught me that when God is nudging,
listen.
He may be urging me to answer a prayer.

Chapter Sixteen

His Eye is on the Robin

Matthew 10:29-30

²⁹
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.
³⁰
And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Two year old Anders’ chubby legs were all that showed beneath the curtain, his unnaturally deep voice and precocious words muffled by the thick cloth. My arms full of laundry; I paused at the doorway and listened, wondering who he was talking to.

“Please let me hold you, little bird,” he was saying, “I won’t hurt you.”

There was silence, and then a deep sigh.

“Dear Lord,” the small child prayed, “Please let me hold a robin. I promise I won’t hurt it.”

I fought back tears at this impossible prayer, and the sweetness of my son looking out over the early spring flock of robins dotting the front yard. The winter had been typically long, hard, and cold; and we were all tired of being stuck indoors, breathing stale, heated air. It was to be a special day. We were heading out in a few moments to drive to my parents’ lake house and open it for the summer. The tremendous effort and work it took to air, clean, and prepare the house after the winter was always daunting. I tried to help my aging parents each spring as best I could.

But my excitement was tempered with Anders’ prayer. I was a new Christian, having come to faith shortly after Anders’ birth. I was pretty clueless about the Christian life, but I did know that helping my children to love and trust God was my greatest desire. How could I help my son’s ember of faith flame if his prayers went unanswered?

I knew that God always answers prayer, but not always as we hope, or expect. Despite Anders immense intellect, he was only two, and I doubted that he would understand that nuance. He had asked God to let him hold a Robin, and would now expect God to deliver. I brushed at my tears, smacked a smile on my face and entered his room, depositing the laundry on a chair.

“Are you ready to go to Little York Lake, A-bean?” I asked, gathering him in my arms.

He was silent. He spoke very little, though when he did, it was always in a deep voice in full sentences.

We both looked out at the robins.

“Those are robins,” I told him, “They are the birds that tell us Spring is finally here.”

He watched them, his big brown eyes intelligent and thoughtful.

“They are wild birds,” I continued, “God gave them the desire to be free, for us to look at and see how beautiful they are. But you know they would not want you to touch them.”

He looked at me and sighed again, as I scooped him into my arms. I peeled an orange for him to eat in the car, and collected our things we would need for the day. The lake house was only an hour away. It was on a little two acre peninsula all by itself, at the back edge of a public park. The grounds were covered by huge old willow trees that tossed their long whippy limbs in the wind and draped them onto the water edge. The lake was small but large enough for me to learn to sail, and canoe, exploring small lagoons and gathering water lilies for Mom to arrange in a shallow bowl. I loved it there.

As I day-dreamed about all the fun my little boy and I would have at the lake this summer, I heard him munch on an orange.

“I don’t like bones,” he said. I glanced in the mirror as he tossed an orange seed to the floor.

He bit into another slice, and again I saw his forehead wrinkle as he tossed another seed away, and repeated, “I don’t like the bones.”

Laughing, I told myself that I would not be the one to tell him they were seeds, just like I would never tell him that the words he sang to the hymn “The Lord Liveth” were
not
“The Ford Plymouth!”

The path onto the peninsula was muddy with deep ruts. The old rusty gate struggled under my hands as I shoved it open across the just softening ground. The metal was cold, but the sun was warm on my back as I put the chain around the post to keep the gate open for when my folks arrived.

Anders and I drove up to the front porch. The house was shuttered and closed, all the doors and windows safely locked for the winter, and the curtains all drawn. I knew the first hour of our time there, it would smell musty and stale, and it was best to go open windows and curtains before getting Anders out of his carseat.

I unlocked the front door and peered in to the beloved dark kitchen. As I switched on the light, I heard a sudden fluttering. I startled and jumped back, thinking it might be a snake or mouse that had snuck in through a crack.

With wonderment, I saw a small bird flopping on the counter. It looked like a young robin, its breast still vaguely speckled. I had no idea how it could possibly have gotten in the house, but assumed by its tremulous sputtering on the counter, that it was injured. I reached out and gently cupped it in my hands. The little bird did not try to escape, but nestled in my hands.

Poor thing, I thought, it must be in bad shape to have let me pick it up without struggling. I looked at it more closely. Clearly it was a young robin. Incredulous, I realized I was holding a robin… I was holding Anders’ prayer.

I moved slowly out the door, the robin in my outstretched arms, to my son who peacefully sat in his carseat, watching me approach.

“Look Anders,” I said, tears streaming down my face, “God sent you a robin.”

He didn’t speak but held out his little hands. I placed the small bird in his warm fingers, and his palms closed gently. He held the robin with a reverent look on his face.

The robin lay still, and I hoped it was not about to die in his hands.

“We better let it go,” I said softly, “It may be hurt.”

Anders opened his hands, smiling. Without a pause, the robin flew away. We watched it as it disappeared in the budding tree tops. Anders gazed upward for a long time.

Sometimes God does not answer prayer exactly as we hope. But sometimes, He does. And sometimes His angels really do have wings.

Chapter Seventeen

The Desires of My Heart