When a stranger calls and love answers

By lamp’s soft light on a chilly April day, I open the Bible. This is the verse I read. “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him (2 Chron. 16:9a).”  What follows is true. I carry the proof, and I’ve changed the name to protect her.

On a hot August night, I hear it. My phone tweets with an incoming text. I pick it up. Huh.

It’s a number I don’t recognize. The area code is unfamiliar; it’s not listed in my contacts. And then–tweet, tweet. Before I can compose a reply, two more have come in.

Before my eyes, a heart is breaking. “Hey, it’s Carol. Please pray for us. I spent last night in jail.”

Row upon row of words, they stitch together a crazy quilt of violence and fear, need and pain.

“Please just pray for us. My daughter is traumatized.”

I tap the keyboard and begin. “Carol who?” Send.

My phone chirps again. “???? Who’s this?” That’s what the stranger says.

“You must have the wrong number,” I say. Send.

“But I can pray for you anyway.” Send.

I remember stopping just there, quieting my heart. “Lord, what to pray? What to give?”

“Be still,” he says. “Tell her that.”

And so, I obey. “Be still,” I type, “and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted on the earth (Ps. 46:10).” Send.

For a moment, I sit, and I wait. Then once more, I take up my phone. Head bent, I tap out a message for a girl whose name I don’t know. “I have asked God to bring order to your chaos.” Send.

Tweet, tweet. “Thank you!” says the hurting woman. “You don’t know what your timely message from a stranger meant to my daughter and me.”

Weeks went by, turning into months, and I forgot this story until early one April day.

In morning’s dark, I awaken. Slowly, slowly, from the depths of slumber, I begin to stir. The Mister comes, bending low to kiss me before he slips out the door. And then I hear it. A tweet.

I pick up my phone. It’s a number I don’t know. “Good morning. This is Carol. And wow! I just realized that you texted me that day in August! You will be blown away when I tell you.”

Huh? Who is this? What’s she talking about? With a sleepy finger, I scroll up and up, reading the thread. Oh, my goodness. The stranger!

“Yes. You’re the stranger who got the wrong number.” Send.

“I am!!!! Can you chat?” I think of the friend I’ve got slated for coffee in a bit, but my schedule belongs, first, to Someone Else, and I’m so curious now.

When the phone rings, I answer. She’s right. I am blown away. I do know this woman, this friend I’d met once in a faraway country. We’d connected since then via Facebook.

She tells me the story of what was happening that night. It was a time of extreme distress and chaos. Domestic violence had entered her life, and the tectonic plates in the family foundation were cracking.

Into my listening ears, she pours it all out. Then the conversation turns again to that text, the mysterious thread. “I did not send you that text,” she says.

“I’ll send you a screenshot,” I say. We hang up, and before I can send her the image, she sends me one first.

Forever more. There may be an explanation, but words and understanding fail me. On a Saturday in August of 2016, her phone got a text. “Carol who?” Followed, then, by the words whispered into my ear by the Shepherd of us both.

She does not have a record of having texted me that night. It’s simply not there. I can see it.

I do have a record of receiving her cry for help. It truly is there. I can see it.

My cell number was not saved in her phone. She told me that as we spoke. That very day, she had gone back into old messages on Facebook to find it, then entered it into her contacts, and that’s when she realized what had happened.

There are some things in life that cannot be explained. There are times when the hand of Providence moves on behalf of troubled souls and intervenes in the affairs of humankind.

How wonderful it is to live beneath that loving eye. How comforting to know that there is a power greater than us and that we are in his care. How thrilling to be guided by the unseen hand, partnering with him here on earth.

“So you know that he’s got your back. This is confirmation of that, and your kids–he’s got them, too.” That’s what I told my dear friend that day, and that’s what I’m saying to you. In the darkest of times, miracles can happen.

If it’s dark where you are, don’t despair; help just may be on its way. Hold to hope.

Every Saturday morning, America’s small, caffeinated mom and her friend, Bo Snerdley, discuss the week’s essay on the nation’s airwaves. They are so grateful for the listeners who join them for coffee and encouraging conversation.