Sometimes I question where God is, other times things happen that open my eyes to see that to name something a coincidence is to fail to see that we are not existing by pure chance but that God IS with us. This week has been one of those weeks.
It all began with prayers for a Comfort Zone Community member who has died recently, we thought that his funeral had taken place, but a well placed encounter with the Community Police team and we knew that this was not the case. Peter will now get a good send off in place of a paupers funeral.
That conversation led to another one, and the Police Officer met in the cafe oposite one church building discovered that the other church I serve is situated right in the town centre and has a coffee shop open every day. The following day when the Officer needed somewhere to bring a young couple she brought them in to the coffee lounge.
Coincidence, maybe, but there is more to the story, the young couple revealed that they were homeless and shared their story with us. I was in the coffee lounge but only because while I wanted to go home something told me I should stay, the Spirit at work; as events unfolded this became clearer and clearer...
Having heard the couples story I placed a call to one of our volunteers who is amazing at finding flats for folk, she told me that she had called a landlord that morning on the off chance, but it was more than an off chance, she found his phone number on a crumpled piece of paper in the recycling box. He had a one bed room flat available. I took the young couple to see it...
The landlord was happy with them, and partly because of our good relationship with the landlords in Blackpool offered them the flat without a bond, and is happy to wait for housing benefit to come through! This afternoon I dropped them off at the flat to to sign the papers and to collect their key. They were delighted, they have been homeless for 3 months and were fleeing from violence in another town. They have an address at last, and life is beginning to look up...
Gos IS with us, and when we question that we need to remember that we see stories like this unfolding among us, and we need to hang onto a more expansive truth than we already know!
Today we had reason to celebrate...
(Picture; 1; Beauty from brokenness. Picture 2: Our lovely community)
