You just don't know...

who you're going to help or how you're going to help them.  Today I learned that several people have been touched by either actions I have done or words that I have spoken in the past few weeks.  Instead of sharing the details of how God used me in these people's lives, I want to share a story of how God used someone else in my life.

Her name is Mrs. Seagler and she was my Spanish II teacher in high school.  Mrs. S. had seen me at my worst, when I was in the throws of my drinking and drug addiction.  She witnessed from the front row the devastation that those choices had as they rippled through my life. 

During the Christmas season about 11 years ago, I ran into her while buying stockings and decorations at a Christmas store in Memorial City Mall.  I had finished making my selections and was in line to pay for my goods.  As I was standing there, I began to think that I recognized the back of this woman's head (her hairstyle hadn't changed in the passing years) and I began to attempt to get a view of her face.  As my eyes met hers, there was that instant flash of recognition that we both experienced.  I said her name and asked if she remembered me.  She responded that she did and I began to tell her of how I had sobered up a few years earlier and how I was married and how my life had been completely turned around.  As I related what had happened, she began to cry.  I asked why she was crying, insisting that this was good news.  She told me that from the time she had first met me and knew of the issues I was struggling with that she had included me daily in her rosary prayers. 

Now my eyes were welling up with tears because I realized for the first time...during all those years of darkness...I hadn't been alone.  She was encouraged to know that her prayers for more than 15 years had been answered.

I share this with you because up until that point, I didn't know that anyone else was for me.  I had no idea that others were standing right there beside me fighting for me.  It caused me to look back on my life and realize that there had been countless others whose words, prayers, and actions had blessed me in amazing ways.

Neither of us realized the work that God was doing in us and through us in those years.  Sometimes you just don't know who you're going to help or how you're going to help them.  So pray hard, speak kindly, and act in the ways of love and God can and will do amazing things in those places...even if you are unaware.