By F. D. Adkins
A crumpled sticky note…
Tossed to the ground…
Picked up by a fourth grader…
Who gave it to a teacher.
Discouraged and struggling from many difficult days, this teacher needed a word from God, and she got a note with the exact message she needed.
This is a true story. These words were sent to me by a friend of the teacher.
Could this note, its message, and its timing have been a coincidence? No, this had the hand of God written all over it, and this teacher keeps this note on her desk as a reminder. This is proof that God can speak to us through anyone or anything, even a crumpled note tossed on the ground.
As I thought about this story, the words from Psalm 139:1-4 filled my mind.
“O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.” (KJV)
Our Father knows our hearts. He knows our thoughts, and He knows our needs. Even when we are at a loss for words and do not know what to pray for, He hears the cries of our innermost being. “…but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether” (Psalm 139:4 KJV). And He gives us what we need at the precise moment we need it most. His timing is always perfect.
How often have I known without a doubt that a song, a message on the radio, or a phone call from a friend was the very voice of God speaking to me?
One of those instances occurred when my daughter was a newborn, and my son was barely a toddler. My anxiety had gone through the roof, literally. I was so frightened that I would not be able to protect them, and my fear had gotten to the point that I was not sleeping. Worry consumed every particle of my brain every minute of my day. I had been a stay-at-home mom for two years, but prior to my son being born, there was a certain preacher that I would listen to on the radio every evening on my way home from work. Given that I no longer commuted to work, it had been quite a while (several years) since I had listened to this preacher and did not know if he still had a radio program.
However, one morning I had to go to the store, which would usually kick my anxiety into overdrive because I would be toting a newborn and a toddler into a germ-filled crowded environment. As I pulled out of my driveway, I flipped on the radio, and that very preacher that I had listened to several years before on my evening drive home from work was giving a sermon in the middle of the morning hours… not late evening when I had listened before. And I will give you a guess as to what he was speaking about. Yes, the hot topic was all about worry… better yet… it was about not worrying. I still get chills when I think about it because I knew it was not the preacher speaking those words to me. Just as there is no other explanation for the note the teacher received, there is no other explanation for the timing of this radio program and the message that it proclaimed, a message from God that, after battling months and months of this anxiety, finally gave me peace, that peace that passes understanding.
“I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”
Psalm 34:3 KJV
Sometimes I appear to be worried about something but I’m not. For a very long time I have tried to let go of worrying (which was my biggest fault) and try to trust God to handle it. My Mother use to tell me back when she was alive, that if we really want to trust God to handle what was bothering us that we had to let go of it and GET OUT OF GOD’S WAY!! So many times I have witnessed things that I really needed but was surprised that God worked out in a miracle type way to help me. It was an answer to my prayers that only God knew about and there was no doubt that He was the one who answered…