Life Down Under

Sovereign

I've been remembering a story the last couple days that many of you may already know, but many of you may never have heard before. I've been thinking about how the Lord has called us here to NZ and about the sovereign events that have occurred that were signposts to us along the way that we were supposed to move here. One such event still (a year later) makes me sit back and go, "Huh?" and marvel at the kindness of the Lord to send us such a clear sign. (Which, incidentally, makes me marvel at my own weakness in the fact that I needed such a clear sign......but anyways.....)

It was August or September '05. We had been feeling some nudges from the Lord about moving here. Nudges that I wished didn't exist and wanted to go away. The topic of moving to NZ wasn't exactly promoting an atmosphere of love and unity in our marriage (let the reader understand), so Aaron and I agreed that we would no longer speak of the subject until the Lord did. Wise move. That was a Wednesday night.

Incidentally, at this time, one of Aaron's good friends from NZ was visiting KC and staying with us in our home. He wanted to go shopping and get some stuff to bring back for himself and his family, so Thursday morning, he and Aaron head to the mall. Now, for those of you reading this who don't know Aaron, you have to understand that Aaron hates the mall. I mean, hates the mall. I can probably count on one hand (and have fingers left over) the number of times I've seen him go to the mall. But anyways, being the good friend that he is, off they went to the mall.

Now, I wasn't there for this part, but here goes the rest of the story as it was told to me. Aaron is standing in Dillard's while his friend is picking out a pair of jeans. Suddenly he hears a voice (with a Kiwi accent) call out to him, "Aaron Walsh?" Aaron turns and looks. A man approaches him, and this is the gist of the conversation: "My name is so-and-so. I'm from Tauranga, New Zealand. I'm a pharmaceutical salesman, on my way to Paris, France. I'm here in Kansas City for 12 hours, wanted to go to a mall, so I took a bus and a taxi to get here." (Did I mention the mall is about 30 minutes from the airport?). He continues, "I heard you speak at a conference in NZ one time, and it changed my life.....and I was just wondering, isn't it time you returned to the land to build the house of the Lord?" Needless to say, Aaron was a bit dumbfounded; his friend speechless. When I heard the story, I wondered if he was an angel. (He isn't, by the way. We have since figured out who he is). But come on, he might as well have been. I mean, how completely impossible is it that? So Aaron came home and told me the story, and I knew at that point God had spoken. We were moving to New Zealand.

And so this is one of the stories (yes, there are others....) that I hold in my heart and ponder every now and then, just to remind myself that we're really supposed to be here; to be encouraged that this whole thing is so much bigger than us; and to feel how deeply God cares about me that He would arrange such a chance meeting to convince my heart that He was in this thing and to confirm that it really was in fact He who was speaking. What can I do but stand in awe of His sovereignty? And that, my friends, makes me fall in love all over again.