An incarnation story

An incarnation story

Sometimes we need for God to send us a person

The fall of 2017 brought some of the greatest challenges of my life. Unemployment came unexpectedly after the home health agency where I had worked for six years shut down. I applied for many jobs, but the future remained uncertain. Then in December, my dad had a procedure to remove a cancerous tumor discovered a few months earlier.

After two hours in surgery, the doctor reported to my mom and me the operation was a success. I walked to the hospital lobby to call my wife regarding the news. While speaking to her, I noticed a young woman crying nearby. I wondered what news she had received. The news I had received brought joy, but in a hospital both joy and sorrow are constant companions.

As I hung up with my wife, I looked over and asked, “Can I help you?”

She lunged at me, hugged me, laid her head on my shoulder, and cried. After a few minutes, I asked to pray for her. I still knew nothing of her nor she of me. After praying, we sat down together.

She told me her name was Tiffany. The young African American woman had come to the hospital that morning for an interview in the food services department. While driving to the interview, her mom had called to inform her of her father’s death overnight.

Tiffany drummed up the strength to enter the hospital for her interview. But as she waited, she sat alone on the windowsill and cried while many people passed by, unaware of her plight.

During the months prior, I had taught John 13-16 and Philippians 4 in two Bible studies I lead. Both Jesus and Paul speak of joy, peace, and contentment that Christ offers despite the circumstances of life. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13) is not an incantation to be able do anything. It is Paul concluding he had learned to be content in all situations no matter the circumstances because of Christ.

This is not an easy concept to grasp.

Even Paul had to learn this kind of contentment (Phil. 4:11).

Through the circumstances of my life, I had times of anger, sadness, numbness. Through all those times and even now, Christ has called me to find joy, peace, and contentment in him, not in my circumstances. I am learning this kind of contentment.

As I sat across from Tiffany listening to her story, I was reminded of all the Lord had taught me over the previous months. I shared some of my journey with her. She looked at me and said, “God sent you to me.”

With humility, I agreed.

It had nothing to do with me but had everything to do with sharing the peace Christ offers all who call upon his name. Our moment in the hospital lobby was one broken heart on the mend sharing with another newly broken heart.

I asked Tiffany if I could pray for her again before she went on to her interview. As she walked away, I stood amazed at the opportunity the Lord provided me.

I sat across from Tiffany, listening to her story. “God sent you to me,” she said.

The significance of that moment happening at a hospital in St. Louis was not lost on me. That we were such different people, a middle-age white man and a young African American woman, did not matter to Tiffany, or to me. And if you remember the racial tensions in St. Louis at the time, the moment is even more remarkable. She was hurting. I was hurting. God brought us together to pray.

The Lord is at work in us and in those around us each day. How might he use us as his followers to encourage and strengthen those who are hurting? As C.S. Lewis wrote, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

Jared Pryer is a Christian counselor and a Bible study teacher at Ten Mile Baptist Church in McLeansboro.