THE PING PONG BALL

Several years ago I experienced one of those tender mercies of God that helped me better understand my relationship with Him.  One Friday morning before leaving for work, I went down to the basement for something.  At the time, the mostly unfinished basement was more cluttered than usual.  There was only one walking path through the clutter that led from the stairs to the two finished bedrooms occupied by two of our girls.  As I walked toward the girls’ bedrooms, I noticed a single ping pong ball sitting on the concrete floor in the middle of my path.  I remember thinking it was odd that the ball was there.  It hadn’t been the night before.  I just stepped over it and completed my errand.  I thought no more of it until that evening.  I had gone down to Peterson’s Market late that evening, about 10:00 to get something.  While there, I ran into Leon, a friend of mine, as he was exiting the store.  I asked him what he was doing there so late and he indicated he had come looking for a ping pong ball but they didn’t have one.  His 16 year old daughter was experiencing her first date that night.  She and her date had come home to play some ping pong but unfortunately they couldn’t find a functional ball.  Leon had already tried Albertson’s across the street because it seemed more likely they would have one.  However, they didn’t.  So he got back into his car with the intent of hurrying across the street to Petersons in the shallow hope of finding one there.  He was in a hurry and was surprised and dismayed when his car wouldn’t start.  There was no apparent reason why it wouldn’t as it had given no previous indication of problems.  For the next twenty minutes he tried repeatedly to get it to start.  Frustration mounted.  Finally, and now somewhat surprisingly, it started.  He hurried to Petersons where our paths intersected.  I told him that I had a ping pong ball.  I knew I did because I had seen it lying on the basement floor that morning.  I told him to go to our place and tell Jo he had come for the ping pong ball that was laying on the basement floor and where exactly it was.  He did, she found it and gave it to him.  His daughter was able to successfully finish her first date.  As I later pondered that string of events I marvelled at how much our Heavenly Father loves each of us.  Prior to that morning the ping pong ball had not been lying in a spot where I could not possibly miss it.  What caused the two of us to intersect that evening?  I believe it was a tender mercy of the Lord.  One could argue that it was all coincidence, that if the Lord wanted to give that girl a ping pong ball he could have prompted them to get one in advance.  My response is that playing ping pong that night was a spontaneous choice but once they decided to play, they needed a ball.  Does our Heavenly Father care about ping pong?  I doubt it.  What He does care about are His children.  She wanted to play ping pong on a very important night for her.  This didn’t escape His attention and He orchestrated a way to get her what she needed on that particular evening.  The message I take from all of this is that He loves each of us, cares about us, is interested in our lives and what is important to us.  Just knowing those things is far more important than any game of ping pong. Each of us involved in the great ping pong ball hunt that night came to know more certainly that indeed Heavenly Father is aware of us and involved with us.  That simple understanding can change the game completely.