Yesterday was a wonderful day. The Men’s Emmaus walk 129 started yesterday evening and I am blessed enough to be able to sponsor a pilgrim on his spiritual journey this weekend. This friend is a great disciple of Christ and will be forged into an even greater servant, husband, father and man of God. I am excited to see his transformation on Sunday afternoon.
One of the items of personal improvement I added to my short term “to do” list was to add markers along my route to and from work. These markers would remind me to be in prayer during my commute. It is consistent with recent sermons that have highlighted being a prayerful church and being in constant prayer. This was reminded to me last night at Emmaus send off and it was my intent to identify those markers on the way in to work this morning.
I had pulled into the right lane and slowed my car down deliberately so I could begin to mentally identify markers and link a specific ongoing prayer to each one (obedience, family guidance, blessings on our church, protection for our soldiers, etc). Within 10-15 seconds I spotted something up ahead on the side of the road. However, it wasn’t a marker but a pulled over vehicle. As I passed it, I noticed a woman inside and a left front flat tire. Now for me, that is a meatball softball pitch — a no-brainer chance for a home run. I try to pay special attention to women and old folks pulled over on the side of the road. While there are a lot of people that need help, I imagine my wife, my daughter or my mom along the side of the road needing help and try to do for others what I would like someone to do for them. That is not to say that there aren’t guys out there on the side of the road that need help. It just means that I try to focus on where I think the need might be greater.
So after I passed the vehicle, I pulled over and went back to see if I could help. The lady, indeed, had a left front flat tire which I offered to help change. She had a spare in the back along with the jack. She asked if she could help and the only thing I requested was for her to stand at the back corner of the car, look back towards traffic, and warn me if there were any inattentive, texting or drunk drivers veering our way. She agreed and set up position while I knelt down to jack the car up. As I raised the vehicle I said a prayer for safety, service and that the lady get to where she was going safely. It seemed like a while with all the cars and semi-trucks whizzing past us but in about 5 minutes I had the tire changed and the jack removed. Unfortunately, the spare wasn’t as inflated as it should be. I asked her where she was headed and she said she worked downtown. Not thinking the spare would survive that trip, I offered to take her to work. She balked knowing how far out of the way it was and asked “Are you sure?”. With it being Friday and my only meeting starting at 12:00pm, I confirmed the suggestion and knew it was the right thing for me to be doing.
We ushered her vehicle down to the next off ramp and secured it in a local strip mall where she could pick it up later after work. She then jumped in and headed downtown. I introduced myself and she said her name was Jenny. I gave her one of my business cards to let her know the reason I was helping her out today. She worked at a large bank building downtown and had just dropped off her daughter at school. She has lived in the Louisville area her whole life but grew up across town. We talked about the beautiful morning that was around us along with a few other conversational things. The traffic was surprisingly light into downtown and even made me ponder the tolerability of the commute if I had a job down there (as opposed to some other downtowns like LA, Frisco, Chicago or NY). Soon enough we were in front of her tall building and I pulled over to the side to drop her off. I offered to give her my cellphone number in case she needed a ride home from work. However, she was confident that she could secure a return trip home. At that Jenny said thank you and exited the vehicle only about 20 minutes late for work.
I continue to be amazed at how God can use a broken vessel like me to love others. I am happy I was able to “close the loop” and that she knows that Jesus loves her by my actions and by the card I gave her. I still need to get back to my original mission of identifying markers along my work commute. But now I know that sometimes God provides temporary and mobile markers for prayer and his glory as well.
Please pray for the men on Emmaus walk 129 throughout this weekend.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
