“This God is the One who gives life, breath, and everything else to people. He does not need any help from them; he has everything he needs. God began by making one person, and from him came all the different people who live everywhere in the world. God decided exactly when and where they must live. God wanted them to look for him and perhaps search all around for him and find him, though he is not far from any of us…” Acts 17:25-27, God’s Word Version.
Forty-two years have passed since my life changed for eternity. In January 1983, our young family moved from the northern side of the Potomac River in Maryland to Richmond Virginia. Moving from one state to another can be difficult, especially when dragging two pre-teenage daughters who exclaim, “I will never be happy in Richmond, and it will never be home!” My husband, Richard had taken a new job, that instigated the move. For a variety of reasons too numerous to list in this writing, I looked forward to returning to Virginia, the state in which I was born and had lived all but the ten years spent in Maryland. For me, Virginia was going home.
Moving in the month of January meant our daughters would begin a new school in the second half of the year to make new friends in a new city, leaving behind the only friends they had known. Even with all the crying and expressed displeasure, we were confident with time, they would adjust and make new friends.
Before continuing with my story, it is important to share something that happened not long before the move. Richard and I had started attending a church not far from our house in Maryland, where I had gotten involved in the choir and our daughters were attending Sunday school. Richard’s attendance was sporadic because he often worked on the weekend. One Sunday morning, I sat on a pew, alone, trying to hold back the tears threatening to expose my sadness. Quietly, I hung my head and prayed, God, please give Richard the desire to come to church with us…please.
Once we settled into the house in Richmond, we joined a tennis club where I met a new friend who invited me to her house for a Bible study. I had never been to a Bible study before, or studied the Bible, but she was so kind, I said yes. We studied the Book of Romans and to my horror, I discovered that I am a sinner!
Well, on this cliffhanger, let me fast-forward to January 2025. As you might imagine, God has been very busy at work in my life. While I would like to “fill in all the blanks,” time and space on this paper will not permit; perhaps you will read it in a later writing. But the “short story” is that for all these years, I have experienced the sweetest, most loving relationship with Jesus that is even sweeter today, forty-two years later. And the prayer I spoke to God on that Sunday trying to hold back tears…several years before Richard died in 2014 from early onset Alzheimer’s disease, my precious husband made his profession of faith in Jesus Christ. After moving across state lines, upending our children’s lives, God had a plan. The adventure of His plan is yet ongoing. And oh, by the way, our children live right down the road from me, having raised their children in the same town they would “never call home.”
Sometimes the “interruptions of manmade plans” are just another opportunity for God to surprise us in the best way.