Worship Wednesday: An encounter with God?

She's not sure, but she thinks she had an encounter with God at a McDonald's.

No, she didn't see a vision like Paul did on the Damascus Road.  Nor did an angel appear to her, like Monica and Tess in Touched By an Angel.  There was no dramatic music involved, nor cheesy special effects.

She'd gone to McDonald's to think, to be alone (and, admittedly, because McDonald's will let you buy a drink of any size with free refills for only one dollar.)  She took a journal with her, and she started writing.  Writing is a good outlet, and she needed this outlet, desperately.

She hadn't been well lately.  She's struggled with numerous problems, physically, mentally, and relationally, and she decided to dump on God.  That's one of the other problems she's had lately as well--problems with believing God really cares about her.  Because if He did, he wouldn't have saddled her with all of those problems, would He?

So she got her Coke, sat down, and started writing.  She wrote a number of pages, a number of angry, accusing pages, pages where she vented her frustration.

In the middle of her writing, something interesting happened.

She started feeling better.

She still isn't sure whether it was just simply a chemical combination that made her feel better, or if it was a cathartic result of the writing she did.

And then she found herself saying--not aloud, but still saying--"Satan, you piece of *&^$!  You piece of excrement!  He's the one who's after me, and I don't want him to catch me.

"This is not of God.  The pain, the doubt, the accusing, the anger . . . this is not of God.  God is love.  Satan is the author of this confusion, this doubt, this anger.  Not God.  This is not of God."

She left McDonald's, got in her car, and started talking aloud to God.

She told him that she wasn't sure.  Had she just had an encounter with God?  Had God met her, given her grace when she needed it?  Had God cleared up her thinking at that moment, when she so desperately needed to think clearly, so desperately needed truth?

She's still not sure.

She doesn't believe that her physical illnesses have been automatically healed, nor does she believe that her questioning, anger, doubts, or other negative things have been permanently banished or healed.  Because she knows that God does not always work like that.

But, if this truly was an encounter with God, if God met her at a place where she needed meeting, if He was the one who reminded her that God was love, and Satan was the accuser . . .

Well, then, she's willing to accept it as a gift from God.

And she's willing to thank God for it.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.