Today's Devotional Thought
November 22, 2011 by Rachel Piferi
Divine Interruptions
On a night that seemed like any other night, God interrupted my life. And of all of the things I am thankful for this holiday season, I am so thankful for that interruption that changed my life.
It was March of 2009 and my career was skyrocketing. I had plans to start a new research center at Johns Hopkins, my husband and I were pursuing the purchase of a riverfront vacation home, and we were still celebrating the glorious miracle we had experienced the year before. Life was good and life was going exactly as we had planned.
Or so we thought.
I had no idea that I was about to be invited into the heartache and pain of another person's tragedy. A person that I really didn't know that well. A person who was reaching out for a friend and who's reaching out would allow God to interrupt my life.
And through that interruption, that precious invitation to feel someone else's pain, God taught me so much about his love.
Many of you have heard the story before. Wendy and her husband had just been betrayed by a trusted friend and their life was about to drastically change. They were hurting and God was working.
Wendy needed a friend.
God told her to talk to me.
And on a random Wednesday evening in March of 2009, she interrupted my choir practice and took a long walk to her husband's office to talk with me. And, I found myself invited by God into the heartache that someone else was experiencing. It was an invitation that changed my life. And it was an invitation that would come many times again as God asked me to pursue ministry and enter willingly into the pain of other people's lives.
My life was interrupted on that Wednesday night in March of 2009. And it forever changed my heart. My perspective. My focus. My life. For the first time in my life, I became focused on someone other than myself and my immediate family. I felt the pain of another and it was as if God just opened my heart wide open and let me feel deeply.
I didn't ask for this interruption.
I didn't ask for the most precious friendship imaginable.
I didn't ask for a brand new calling that would take me in a completely different direction than I was heading.
I didn't ask for my heart to be opened wide so that Jesus could pour himself into me and I could pour him out to others.
I didn't ask for this.
It was a gift. From God. That interrupted a normal Wednesday night choir practice and completely interrupted my life.
Have you ever had those life changing interruptions? The ones where you are going along just fine and then God just opens your heart wide open and invites you into the life of another person? Oh how I thank God for those types of life changing interruptions. The ones where I can feel love for others like Jesus feels for us.
I pray you have those life interruptions and can experience God in that way. Because sweet friends, it is simply amazing. And, I think that is exactly why God did it to me a couple of years ago.
December