Excerpt from Diamond Fractal
Sometimes God makes appointments for us that aren’t penciled into the calendar. One day I had a lot of errands to run, and as I thought through the best route to take for the greatest efficiency and gas consumption, Wal-Mart came up first on my list. I parked the car, grabbed a cart, and “accidentally” met one of our clients coming out of the store. The look on her face was priceless, as she exclaimed, “I just prayed ten to fifteen minutes ago: Lord, I need to see Karen or Minna right now!” She was in crisis mode as she was on her way to a family member’s funeral.
And so God’s business was done in a makeshift office (her air-conditioned car in Wal-Mart’s parking lot) as we prayed together and she released her panic and dread to the Great Physician. “God is so good,” she kept reiterating. Indeed He is! Later she reported, “The funeral was amazing! No terror or panic. Just peace. I cannot thank you enough for following the leading of God and being there. I don’t know what I would have done.” There are truly no words to describe the love, mercy, and grace of our Father in heaven.
Another day, I walked into the dental office a few minutes early and sat in the waiting room. Immediately, the only other person in the room (an African-American man) turned to me and said, “I hate being here. I’ve served in the military and I’ve jumped out of airplanes, but I’m scared of a little ol’ dental appointment.”
“Why are you so fearful of it?” I asked.
Pause. “I’ll tell you why,” he replied. “When I was a little boy, my father had to wear dentures, and I remember the awful pain he had to go through.”
“Why was that so fearful to you?” I asked again.
He thought a moment. “Because I could imagine the tools the dentist had to use to extract his teeth.”
“What were you imagining?” I asked.
“A chisel and a screwdriver.”
And so I asked him gently, “Would you like me to pray with you?” His eyes lit up, he grabbed my hands, and exclaimed, “Sure!”
“Just look at the picture of the tools and focus on the fear,” I told him. And then I prayed, “Lord, what do You want to show this man in that picture?”
Immediately he relaxed. “He took them [the tools] away!”
“And how’s the fear now?”
“It’s gone! Wow!”
And then we had the sweetest time of fellowship, as he shared about his ministry to special-needs adults with a Christian organization down the street. The whole transaction maybe took all of ten to twelve minutes, but it was just long enough for God to jump in and do His miracle in this man’s heart.
In the Pursuit of Peace 
Those are great examples of how God moves our fears and pain. Yesterday, I was impatiently waiting to turn onto my street. I have to cross two lanes of a main arterial on a diagonal, and since it was 3:30 in the afternoon, all the cars were coming my way. I asked the Lord for a break in traffic, and He said. “Patience, Child. Won’t be long.” It wasn’t, but what he wanted me to do was settle down. Since I had my granddaughter with me, it was good advice. I don’t like being out in rushy afternoon traffic, but i was aware the Lord and the angels had me, so I was able to calm down until it was my turn (which wasn’t long, just felt long to me). I’m always grateful I can pray even about the traffic.
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