On a Whimsy

Anybody who knows my husband at all understands that, despite being German, and an engineer, and as such, excessively logical, he is prone to taking actions on a whim.  Usually they end up very well, too — like the whim to move to Arizona 18 years ago… or the whim to buy some property up north!  Quite often it seems that, after the fact, we see a pattern of divine inspiration in these whims of his.

Well, I have another tale of Paul’s whimsy to relate. Last week on Tuesday, as always, my husband was hanging out at the SVdP pantry at church, getting ready to open the doors, when the phone rang. Now, the rule about that phone is that it is only answered during a set time of day when a volunteer is there to set up appointments, and the rest of the time, it goes straight to voice mail. It even says that on the voice mail message. So Paul is standing there and hears this soft little ring. And he looks over at that phone, and instead of moving on, like any other sane Vincentian, he decides to pick it up. As they say on Buzzfeed,

“What happened next will BLOW YOUR MIND!!!”

When he came home and told us this story, it was met with gales of laughter on all sides. God strikes again, with divine panache. Paul, who every year, says “This year I don’t think I have anybody coming through RCIA!” – and yet has ended up sponsoring at least one person every year since he came into the church, who happens to have this propensity for whimsical rule breaking, just happened to be standing in the pantry right by the phone nobody is supposed to answer, when it happens to ring, and on a whimsy, he decides to answer that phone, only to find that the person on the other end is — wait for it — wanting to come into the church!!!

They met to talk later that week. On Sunday, Malik came to church and then joined us at home for Sunday dinner, and we were so blessed, so blessed to meet him and be caught up in the unfolding of God’s providential plan.

So what is the moral of the story? Always answer the phone? Perhaps – but most importantly, be open to the Holy Spirit. You never know when, or how he is going to move!