Providence: Meeting, Visit, Book, Healing

 

I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.                                                 Jeremiah 10:23

 

We have a neighbor who has been ill and undiagnosed for a long time. He has been in and out of the emergency room and the doctor’s offices for months. He has had no diagnosis. He just knew his gut was killing him.

Enter, God’s providence. Last month I went to a meeting and saw an old acquaintance. She has family members with gut issues so she has done a lot of research. I, sadly, did not even think about my neighbor as we talked.

She, providentially, invited me to come visit her one day the next week. Providentially, I could go. Providentially, before I left my neighbor called to ask if I could take him to the Emergency Room. He came out of his house holding his stomach. On our way there, he asked me to thank my daughter for some chicken noodle soup that she had taken to him. He said it was the first thing he had eaten that stayed down. I knew the noodles were made from brown rice flour.

As I visited with my friend later that day, we talked kids and diet, gut health (which is high on my own list of priorities), and the Lord. I got to see and talk to her children, and took a long walk in the woods. A good day.

As I was leaving, she offered me a book she had read and reviewed on her website, Purposeful Nutrition (http://www.purposefulnutrition.com/). She said she likes to read and review memoirs. The title of it is, “In Memory of Bread.”

God’s providence was at work again.

The next day, I sat down to read it, got just a couple of chapters in, and realized it was describing exactly what I have been watching my neighbor go through!

My daughter had made more soup. I offered to deliver it. He said he felt a little better though he was obviously still sick. He felt so awful on Thanksgiving day that he had nothing but cereal, being afraid to eat anything that would upset his gut more.

I asked if he had been tested for celiac. He said it had been mentioned. I told him about the book. Then, I took him the book.

Yesterday, I heard someone outside scraping a shovel,  cleaning up the street. I looked and there was my neighbor, sweeping, shoveling, cleaning his car, and generally looking active and not bent over in pain!

He said he had started reading the book and his diet has been just like the author’s. After months of agony, the author was diagnosed with celiac. He (the author) started avoiding (eliminating) gluten, and learning all of its secret, hidden sources, and was feeling better by diet.

In God’s providence, my neighbor read the book, eliminated gluten, and he, too, is feeling better.

A meeting. A friendly visit. A providential conversation (or two). A daughter who is neighborly. And healing.

I love the way God works. His providence is so subtle that we sometimes miss it. Will you look for what He has been doing in your life – or the life of your neighbor?