“Wai Jia! It’s me.”
A voice called out from behind. I knew her face. But the name didn’t register.
“Are you from Fulbright?”
“No, your college. Remember me, from the basketball team?”
With my 3-year old in hand while walking to the supermarket, I squinted to remember.
It was an acquaintance from over 17 years ago who’d recognized us from behind.
“I know this is strange, but I’m now an educational therapist. I help kids with learning challenges at @accretive.learning. I recently chanced upon your IG, and it’s been on my heart to gift your family a literacy and numeracy toolkit I created on @countmewordy. I know you guys homeschool, but I didn’t want you to think I was trying to market you something… and how good God is, that I spotted you today. What were the chances?”
What were the chances.
It had happened before- I, walking alone in a foreign neighborhood, and a stranger walks up to me. Connects me with a mum. Who gives me an owl backpack for my firstborn, identical to the one I lost during our disorienting move back to Singapore, the one thing she adores.
As I meditate on Psalm 23:6, “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” it amazes me that the Hebrew word for “follow” is pursue. It carries the ferocity of the word “persecute.”
Now I get it. I get it.
God pursues us. He runs after us. He seeks us out in the hard places, the hidden places, to make His ways known to us.
She wrote, “I wasn’t even praying about it. But it touches me to know- that my thoughts matter to God.”
God pursued HER, too.
Maybe you’re in a season you feel like no one sees you. Maybe you’re a mum tired from changing diapers, a student swallowed up in the education system, a worker struggling to find meaning at work.
Wherever you are, know this- God is pursuing you. He pursued you, and always will.
If you’re lost and broken, hurting or struggling, would you think back upon the times He sought you out? And guess what- He’s going to seek you out again. Just wait and see. ❤️
*shared with permission