How God Used Kind Strangers to Help Me
Happy New Week! First, I must apologize for not publishing an article on Friday. There was an emergency that needed my attention - thus, I couldn’t write a post that morning. All is well now, thank God. How was your weekend? My sleep has gotten better. I brought up the issue of not being able to sleep to my bible study group, and they prayed fervently for me.
I also began praying seriously about it, and discovered some scriptures that I now confess every night before bed. One of which is found in Proverbs 3:24: “When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.” So, while I have recently been getting deep sleep, I still wake up with slight headaches. I am hoping that God perfects my healing soon. Enough of the catching up, let’s get into today’s topic.
The first time I wrote about the subject of kindness was for thriveglobal.com. It was just a few months into my blogging journey when I landed this gig to create some written content for the wellness platform. Each week, they provided their contributors with assignments on various topics to tackle.
Over the years, I have encountered the kindness from strangers, which is always a mind-blowing experience for me. So, today, I’ll share a story I experienced about four years ago, and I hope it renews your hope in Christ (if you are struggling).
The Lagos traffic had gotten crazier (what else is new?), I remember spending hours on the road and sometimes found myself crying from the toll the stress had taken on my body. The week leading up to this event, I was going to bed late, and waking up early without spending time reading my bible or praying as I should, because I just had to make it to work on time.
The truth is, when we remove God from the equation, the burden becomes harder for us to bear. As a result, I was more stressed at work, and not happy being there. I was also angrier at the roads, and the distance I had to drive each day for work. Little did I know that I was slowly experiencing burn-out, and desperately needed God’s help.
On my way back from work one day, I trusted Google maps and passed through a lonely road in an attempt to avoid the gridlock I had seen from a mile away. I then ended up in a place worse off than where I was trying to avoid. The rains had no mercy on me that day either. With my car, I swam through the trenches, desperately following the directions google maps provided. With each swamp I successfully waded, I muttered under my breath, “thank you God.”
Then I got to a dead end - a pool of water, my desperation even knew that it had gotten to the end of itself. I turned around, trying to force google maps to redirect me, but it kept saying—make a U-turn (in that annoying voice). U-turn to where now?
By this time, I began to pray to God for help. It was about 10:30pm, in an unfamiliar neighborhood, with no way out. As I began slowly driving back, I came across a woman who carried a box with a cake in it, and flagged me down. It was beginning to rain and she asked, “where are you going?” I answered her frantically, with the area my house is located. She then explained that the roads were really bad, so much so that those who had driven their cars earlier, had parked them on the road, and continued their journey by foot. I was discouraged. Then she advised, “maybe you should go back to where you are coming from and spend the night there.”
That wasn’t even an option, as I was coming from Ikoyi; she probably thought I visited someone around the area. “Madam,” I replied, “I can’t go back to where I am coming from. I can’t even put my car through those roads again.” Then she proposed that I carried her, promising to take me to an estate where we might find commercial bike riders to direct me home. I agreed, and we made our way to the estate. However, no bikes were available. By this time, it was about 11pm.
I was beginning to lose hope. Was I going to sleep in my car in an area where I did not know? How was I then going to make it to work the next morning? We then came across a group of people who she knew, immediately she called out to one of the men, “Pastor!” I felt some relief. If these where my fellow brothers and sister in Christ, then I was in good hands. She explained my situation to the group of men, and told them where I was going.
Some said I needed to go back the way I came, some tried to describe another way out for me, but I did not know the route. Then finally, the one who she called “pastor,” offered to follow me. Now, I usually would not let a complete stranger (who is a man) into my car, even during the day. However, for some reason I was not afraid. Perhaps my desperation had resurfaced at that time - I just needed to get home.
So, the lady stepped down and continued on her journey, while the man hopped in, taking over from where she left off. Turn this way, turn that way, don’t go that way, stay on this path; he directed me - better than Google maps. I listened carefully and did as I was told, until we got to a familiar area which was no longer flooded. As soon as I told him I knew where we were, he stepped out of the car. I said, “sir, let me at least pay for a bike to take you home.” He replied, “don’t worry, I will walk.”
I was so thankful that God sent those two people to be of help to me in my time of need. It showed me that he is well aware of everything which takes place. My experience reminded me of this amazing song by Lauren Daigle titled, Rescue. The chorus goes like this: "I will send out an army to find you, in the middle of the darkest night, it's true, I will rescue you. There is no distance, that cannot be covered, over and over, you're not defenseless, I'll be your shelter, I'll be your armor." She captured beautifully God's kindness towards me that night, with the lyrics of her song.
The world is mostly plagued with bad news, which makes us believe that good things don’t happen anymore. And that is false. As long as we have God, we will always have good - as long as we have the gospel of Christ, we will always have good; no matter how bad things get. I remember a woman I worked for when I was in one of my lowest points; broke, and without money to pay my bills.
I had racked up a phone bill of over $300 and did not know how I was going to pay it off. I refused to call home and burden my family with the issues I created for myself, so I decided to deal with my struggles alone. One of my key concerns was that she was not going to be able to reach me for work. I stood one day in my kitchen, frying plantain, and daydreaming (as usual). I thought - what if when I tell her that I haven’t paid my phone bill, and she decides to pay it for me, and not take it out of my salary? I laughed at myself. A whole $300? Even in 2016, it wasn’t small money. She’d even conclude that I was irresponsible to have amassed that amount.
So, later that day, while at my other job, I sent the woman a message saying, my phone line was going to be suspended soon, but while at work, she could communicate with me through iMessage, since there was Wi-Fi in the office. She replied asking if I needed her to give me a phone to use in the interim, to which I responded that would be great.
Then she went ahead to ask me how much the bill was. I’d be honest; I wanted to lie and tell her a lesser amount, but I only figured I would be doing myself a disservice. As such, I told her the truth. I mean, what was the worse that could happen? She’d give me the spare phone, or get someone else for the job. However, I got an alert; she had sent me the money to cover the gbese, and my salary as well.
Ah! it is not today God has been good to me! This story sounds all too familiar, thinking about the current boss that I have, and how kind she has also been to me. I was, and I’m still grateful to the woman I worked for in 2016, because even during the weeks she did not need my services, she still paid me. God used her in that season of drought, to be a blessing to me. I will never forget how kind and gracious she was to me.
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How These Strangers Showed Me Kindness During One of My Painful Experiences