Sandi was calling me on the phone. We had just sent a few text messages back and forth, but we had so much to talk about; a phone call was necessary! Sandi is one of my really good friends from last year (her name is changed for this blog), but we really hadn’t stayed in very good contact this year. However, I had texted her because I had heard her ex-boyfriend was in town (C-town), and I wanted to make sure she was ok. (I had walked through their breakup last year with her.) I was particularly curious about something Sandi said in one of the texts. She said she had “cast lots” to figure out what to do. I wanted to find out what happened. And so the story unfolded…
Out of the blue, Sandi’s ex-boyfriend was back in her life, visiting on a break from work. He had recently bought a house and was ready to get married, but Sandi also had another guy she’s been thinking about. What a dilemma! She needed to know which option she should pick, so she wrote the name of her ex-boyfriend and the name of the other guy on separate pieces of paper and then added a third blank piece to the mix. Then, three times in a row, she drew one piece from the pile. Each time the piece was blank! Sandi concluded that God had different plans for her other than one of the two choices she had in front of her.
(Later my roommate did an experiment, trying to understand how this would work. She recreated the situation, and pretty much decided it was a miracle that Sandi drew the same piece of paper three times in a row. It wasn’t totally improbable, my roommate tells me; it’s just that the odds were definitely not in her favor.) Sandi and I talked about God being completely trustworthy with our future because He knows what is best for us.
Then we chatted about plans for the holidays, and Sandi shared with me that the house church she is a part of (and that I worked with last year) is looking for a place to host 300 people for their Christmas party this year. (What!?! 300 people!?!) They are also asking God to give them 100 people who will make a commitment to follow Jesus! “When someone decides to follow Jesus, it’s called a fruit, Laura,” Sandi was telling me. “We are asking for 100 fruits this Christmas. Some people in our fellowship were saying it’s too many to expect, but other people are saying we should ask for even more!”
We talked about so much more, but I’ll share that at another time. God’s really doing a lot in Sandi’s life! I’m so impressed by God’s faithfulness to continue the good work He started until it is completed!