Appointments

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven."
Eccesiastes 3:1

Appointments. We all make them, keep them, break them, forget to keep them. The difference with God is that once He makes appointments, they simply are NOT broken. This week, two divine appointments hit me like a ton of bricks.

The first divine appointment came to me quite unexpectedly as I was performing hall duty at school. While watching red-clad gang members streaming by me noisily on their way to first period, one of my theater students came to me with a panicked look on her face. She asked me if she could speak to me privately. "Oh, no!" I thought selfishly. "She's going to drop out of our show (which is in 2 weeks)." As it turned out, she handed me a copy of an e-mail written by another student of mine, with whom I have worked hard to cultivate a positive relationship. The email
was a plea for me to get her some help with her secret eating disorder, which was consuming her and making her consider some drastic options.
After I made the necessary arrangements for the help she so richly deserved, I realized that had not I been diligent to shower this student with God's kindness, she would not have felt that she could have approached me for help, which could have led to disastrous results for her health (and possibly her life). I was overwhelmed with the fact that God has indeed placed me exactly where He wants me to be, that His appointment for me at my school was truly His Will. Talk about being humbled. I grew teary when I considered His Grace in this situation. Please be in prayer for this student. God truly intervened on her part to spare her life. We need to intercede for her.

The second divine appointment took on a very different form. A friend of our family, only 35 years old, passed away unexpectedly after suffering complications from medication he had been taking for several years. His wife, 27 years old, is now left with a grief beyond imagination after sharing just four years of marriage with her husband. God's appointments are not suppressed by our earthly construct of justice and equity. His Ways shatter our notions of what should and should not happen.

He spares one and calls another home. He heals some and allows others to walk through horrendous suffering and loss. He loves all of us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3) and yet He maintains His right to order our lives.

He is GOD. And we are not.