GOD SURELY WATCHES OVER US
While working in the garden one June morning I received a phone call from a farmer in Duchesne, Utah. He introduced himself and asked if I had a minute to talk. He said that yesterday he had been moving sprinkler pipe in one of his fields. Upon finishing he walked back to his 4 wheeler and was surprised to find a young woman sitting on it. He asked her why she was sitting there. During the course of their ensuing conversation, he learned that she was 21 years old, lived in the Salt Lake Valley and was struggling with a serious drug problem. She also had a challenging relationship with her mother and had left home that morning after an argument between them. She found a way to get to a Walmart in Salt Lake City, met a guy there, and hitched a ride with him without even knowing where he was going. She couldn’t remember his name. Remarkably she ended up sitting on this farmer’s 4 wheeler, virtually in the middle of nowhere, on some farmland outside a remote town. It just so happened that the farmer was serving in the Church’s Addiction Recovery Program. He and his wife fed her and let her stay with them for the night. She told them where she lived and the name of her mother. They contacted her mother to let her know that her daughter was in a safe place. He accessed the Church’s Addiction Recovery website and found a support meeting held near her home. He told her about it and she agreed to attend the meeting with her mother when she got home. He bought her a bus ticket and put her on the bus this morning. He had yet to hear if she arrived home safely. He called me because my name is listed on the website as overseeing the meetings in her area. He wanted to know if it was a good meeting. I assured him that it was. He wanted to talk to the missionaries who would conduct that meeting Sunday night to give them some advance notice and to watch for her and welcome her warmly and I provided him their contact information. As we concluded our phone conversation, I began to ponder the incredible odds of her leaving Walmart with a guy she didn’t know and couldn’t remember his name, drive with him to Duchesne, of all places, which was apparently the end of the ride for her, and then to walk out of town only to end up sitting on a 4 wheeler owned by a man who works with those struggling with drug addiction. To make it even more incredible, she admitted that upon seeing the 4 wheeler and finding the keys in the ignition, she had intended to steal it and drive as far as she could. He asked why she hadn’t. She replied that for some strange reason, she just couldn’t do it. You may discount this as an incredible string of coincidences. However, I cannot. To me, because of the many times I’ve experienced the hand of God in my life, I believe she was guided to that very spot and waited for him to return to his 4 wheeler. He was familiar with the destructive power of drug abuse. He was also knowledgeable about how to find help for her. As I ponder the series of events that brought her to him, all I can see is a loving Heavenly Father watching over a beloved daughter, hoping she will grab the lifeline He is offering. He won’t violate her agency and she has full right to choose how she will respond to this divine gift of love and mercy. We can only pray and hope she will grasp it firmly with both hands and hold onto it with all her might.