Jesusluvsall's Blog

This past Saturday when I finished reaching my morning English class at church, I went outside and noticed it had begun to snow lightly. We had  light snow all day. It is a bit early for where I live. Most Novembers we do not snow and our first snow comes in December.

As I was driving home in the snow, memories of snow in Minnesota came to mind specifically the ones in the fall of 1991. In October of 1991, we had a 28 inch snow that shut down the city for a few days around Halloween. A few weeks later, we had a 14 inch snow. That second snow something significant happened that I will never forget.

I was feeling discouraged and in a fit of frustration I told God I wasn’t going to pray because it only made things worse. I told God, “There is no hope and prayer won’t work it only makes it worse.”

God knew how to get my attention. It had been drilled into me as a child. Help elderly women. Even in my worst days as a teen, my instinct was to watch out for the elderly, and anyone else who was disadvantaged,

I started walking to a local supermarket five blocks away. Most of the sidewalks had not been shoveled due to being in a low-income neighborhood. I had walked three blocks when I noticed a old woman trying to walk in the snow. I stopped and asked her if she was okay. She told me she needed to get to the Walgreens to get her blood pressure medicine. Red flags went up in my mind about this older woman walking in the snow to get her blood pressure medicine. So I offered to help her. I walked backwards in the snow stomping footprints for her to step in while I held her hands.

To put her mind at ease, I shared a few things about myself because I didn’t want her to worry. I shared with her that I was a student at the bible college studying for ministry and that I worked part-time at Billy Graham’s ministry.

She looked at me and said, “Billy Graham? I pray for Billy Graham. I believe in prayer especially when there is no hope.” That rattled in my spirit because she had basically just repeated my words back to me that I had said to God.

We got to the Walgreens that had only one door for both entry and exit. I offered to stay and help her home, but she said she would be fine and could have a cab called. I started to walk away but felt I need to make sure. I went into the store and looked around. I couldn’t find her.

I asked the cashier what happened to the old woman who came in for her medicine. The cashier looked at me with that look of wondering who the kooky guy was. She told me, “No one has been in today because of the snow.”

I left wondering what had just happened. I realized that God had sent me a message to not give up on prayer. Hebrews 13:2 came to mind:

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for by doing so some have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”