Do Angels Bake Fortune Cookies?

Last Thursday evening I came home from work looking forward to taking a long weekend off with John to celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary on Friday.

After supper he went to practice his sax and I looked at the blog. I was drawn to the faces of people who follow my thoughts and stories and rather than posting I decided to look at their sites and see what was important to them. I was about half way through the list when I found that one of the people who visits with me is a photographer. No point and shoot pictures like I take but real beauties. Pictures with soul.

One tree photo in particular filled the space between my ribs and effected me in the same way as a little painting Kim Lorentzen painted for me, "Spring Evening At The Prayer House." It seemed to whisper, "Kathy, rest against my trunk. Listen to the grass breathe. Smell the earth. Feel the world turn slowly." That photo had me at "Hello."

There was a contact email and I made contact. The answer came quickly. I was expecting a price list. What I got was nothing I could have imagined. The artist responded and in the course of several back and forth emails mentioned that her husband had once been in the Army band in Germany with a man who had my last name. Someone her husband had looked for over the years.

My photographer/blog member was the wife of my husband's friend he lost touch with but had tried several times to find over the years without success. John and Mike came to Christ together 40 years ago while in the service. The anniversary of the day John met His Savior was also this very weekend.

I was laughing out loud and calling for John to come read Ellen's email. John was amazed. There was a cell phone number and an email address that had literally appeared out of nowhere. With the time difference between Alaska and Michigan and plans that we had, John decided to call Mike after lunch on Saturday.

We like Chinese and that is what we treated ourselves to as part of our anniversary celebration. The picture below was the fortune some angel stuffed into John's cookie. They cover a lot of ground those messengers of the Almighty. No detail is too small. No kindness ignored.


John and Mike spoke for the first time in four decades and John said it was as if no time had passed at all. The scripture concerning "a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day" came to mind with greater understanding.

David Teroux commenting on a C.S. Lewis friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien says, "Lewis points out that friendship embodies a spiritual relationship that begins from the companionship among peers, when two or more individuals choose to break away as they discover and wish to share some common interest. As he notes, the development of friendship involves the question, “Do you see the same truth?—Or at least, ‘Do you care about the same truth?’”

Christ was the One "seen" by two Army musicians in the Jesus movement of the 70's. The One cared about by each of them all these many years since. The One who has kept each in His sight all this passing time. The One who brought each to the end of their search for the other in a way that mystifies. I think God invented comedy. Timing is everything and He's got it down.

Jesus is the beginning of our journey and the end of our searching. The Alpha and Omega whose plan for our lives is filled with utter goodness and care. "How do you know me?" Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." (John 1:48)

How long was that one fortune cookie waiting for John to stop in for lunch? Not half as long as God was planning for him to open it. "In Him all things consist" and friendships most of all. He is the great architect of our lives who delights in the details that delight us.

There will be a new picture to grace our wall and to remind us that as the Lover of Our Souls, Christ will never be out done. To remind us that "a friend loves at all times" even if its been a long time.

This has been one special anniversary...or two!

Amazed and calling, "Shotgun!"-Kat