I have been keeping busy these days by performing work for a woman in Ballard named Lorna. Lorna and I met a few weeks ago while I was building my mother’s porch swing in secret. I was painting the swing, working with my shirt off, when I heard a call over the fence from the house next door. A woman in her later years stood on her second floor deck and called down questions to me; questions like: what kind of work do I do, and would I be interested in doing some work for her?
What was sure to be two days of deck repair has since turned into about two weeks of solid work. Over the course of that time, I’ve really gotten to know a man named Kam Johnson better. Kam is my Dunn Lumber salesman. Dunn is the place that people who know construction go to for their building materials in Seattle. Kam borrowed a truck from his friend, to come to my job site, on his day off, to deliver building materials, free of charge. He has a great spirit, and is a strong, conscientious, and generous man. Kam always has a smile and a hug ready for me, and I expect our friendship to be a constant in my life.
The day after Kam came by, I had an official delivery from Dunn. This time it was a driver named Scott. As we worked to unload the fence boards, Scott alluded to some time of military service. He mentioned a time window which precluded his involvement in either of our most recent foreign invasions. “Did you serve in Iraq 1?” I asked. “Nope,” he replied, “Kosovo.” At that I stopped and considered the odds; that I, a person who has been invited to serve on behalf of the Church in Kosovo would encounter a veteran of that conflict on my job site in Seattle.
I do not encounter God with any more frequency than anyone else does. I do not live amongst more miracles than the average person. Because I am looking with expectation for the ways in which God is at work in my world, sometimes I get a flicker of light on the periphery of my vision field. On Wednesday I was able to spot one of the millions of miracles that transpired in that single moment in time. God had sent a messenger disguised as a man.
albaniacalling 