God's Messengers Unaware...

Have you ever gone through a difficult time and in the midst of it you saw something, or someone said something and it
told you that you are going to be O.K... My mother and father lived a marriage that could only be called a Torrid Irish love affair for 37 years. It pushed them to pack the most into every moment of their lives and it produced some unusual children by any stretch. But, the first night my mother slept alone ( as with so many we know who have lost someone ) she said it was a night of emptiness, loneliness, blackness, and no sleep that resembled Hell itself.
As the light dawned at 4;30 she told us later that she was sure she would lose the very grip on her mind the rest of her days.
At 5 am that morning an old friend of my fathers from his war days phoned my mother and told her he knew he had to talk to her about their mutual loss: Ross Greenshields. The only people who share anything close to the intimacy of a man and a woman of for 37 years are two men who share the intimacy of time spent together during the war. He began to speak to my mother about his friend Ross and what a great companion he was and how through those difficult, dangerous years they had meant so much to each other as men in arms of common purpose despite their fears, youth, and dreams of a brighter future.
My mother told us that this particular comrade had not spoken to herself nor my father for many years and that his call and timing appeared to be "out of the blue". But it quickly dawned on her that this call was so much more... She got down on her knees and gave thanks to God for giving her back her sanity This friend was an answer from God amidst the madness and blackness that the death of her most cherished one placed upon her. That was when she was 62 years old back in 1983 and Mary Greenshields ( nee Cooper of Belfast ) died just a year and a half ago. Strangely, ( despite a son's bias ) many said she shone when he was alive and as much or more when he passed away. She spoke freely of him into her 80's as if he had left yesterday afternoon. When asked why she never married again, she repeated the question " where would I find another man like your father ?... We squeezed more life into those years than anyone I have known ... we taught each other how to live "
I experienced this sense of darkness and personal questioning on a much lesser scale just before the end of the school year. I was made to feel that all the passion and time invested of what I believed and did in terms of working with adolescents
was for naught. That is, until I spoke to a friend of mine on the phone. His call had nothing to do with my present life circumstance that was pushing me back to another time of questioning my existence or... at least my relevance. He unknowingly spoke of a similar life circumstance he had, related back to me that I was O.K. and somehow relayed to my psyche that I was needed in what I do. This man is not a Christian. But tonight he was God's Messenger Unaware.
If you get an urge to call someone and believe for some reason and timing you don't understand, that they need to hear from you. Make that call. If you think someone might need your encouragement. Make that call. If there is someone who pissed you off, but you heard something else in their voice. Make that call . Don't hand me that crap about whether you fit the bill. None of us do...and all of us do. Just make the call. God will look after them whether you do it or not, but wouldn't it be good to be part of it ?...