When I opened our gate at the doorbell’s ring, my heart jumped.
“Why were they here?!” My defenses rocketed.
All day, I’d felt like a walking corpse, wrung.
After significant improvement in the barking from our neighbor’s dogs since our last encounter, I was bewildered by the incessant, unrelenting barking all day. As my head pounded, my body started to shut down. I felt soft and fragile inside, ready to implode.
Were they upset? Tired of recent adjustments that had helped us and now ready to revert to old patterns?
All day, I wrestled in tears and in prayer, desperate to go over and talk to them but was too afraid to. My body, exhausted from reliving the trauma the barks brought on, heaved with agony.
And there is front of us, stood the elderly Tanzanian Bibi (grandma) and her equally elderly Yaya (housemaid).
I was ready for bad news. But what happened next stunned me—
In Swahili, she said, “My granddaughter is celebrating her birthday today. Would you all like to come over to have cake?”
I stared back in unbelief, tears pooling. All day, in my desperation, I’d pleaded with God to take away the thorn in my flesh. My mind had travelled to dark places… I had begged Him to let me talk to them, and now, on the same day, God had orchestrated this divine connection. 😭
“We are so sorry our dogs went crazy today. We went out, and one of their leashes broke. The village kids threw stones at them. It won’t happen again!”
The next day, my devotional from Oswald Chambers wrote, “When I’m walking in obedience and I encounter problems, it only increases my delight, because I know that my Father knows, and that I’m going to get to watch and see how he unravels what appears to be an impossible situation.”
Our local Swahili teacher told us, “This is VERY un-Tanzanian, very unusual for the elderly Bibi to invite you all so personally and spontaneously like this!”
I’m learning- that when I’m quick to despair, to turn towards God in prayer instead. Because He knows, He hears and as we watch His unraveling, we get to marvel at a story far more beautiful than we ever dared imagine.
He loves you. 💛let’s keep hoping🙏🏾