During this pandemic, God brought back to my mind something that he used a stranger to teach me years ago. When I was in my forties with a full-time job and two children, my widowed mother was hospitalized with complications from breast cancer. She was scheduled to be released from the hospital to our home. I was able to cut back work to half time, but we needed a caregiver for her during the mornings. I was praying for answers, but I was also fretting!
A week before Mama was scheduled to be released, I was in Atlanta at a Bible Study Fellowship retreat. Everyone was placed with a roommate from another city. I wasn’t in the mood to get to know someone new. I was preoccupied with finding care for my mother. We were asked to share prayer requests with our roommates. I am ashamed to admit that I have no idea what my roommate’s prayer request was. I don’t remember her name or what she looked like. However, I do remember her response to my prayer request. God still uses it to encourage me over thirty years later! I asked her to pray that God would provide care for my mother in the mornings while I worked. I explained that we did not have the financial resources to hire someone to care for her. Here is what my roommate said to me before she prayed, “Anne, you will get your manna, but you will only get it one day at a time.” God sent those words straight to my heart. He reminded me that I could trust him with the future and with my mother. I needed to stop fretting and start trusting him in a new way, one day at a time!
Here is how God provided the first person to stay with Mama. I had taken a few days off work to get my mother settled and still didn’t have a caretaker for her. While praying on my neighborhood walk, a car pulled up and stopped beside me. A high school friend that lived in my neighborhood stopped and rolled down her window. She had heard that my mother was coming home from the hospital. She asked if we needed anything, specifically someone to sit with Mama. She said that her husband Charlie wasn’t currently working and would love to spend some time with her. I almost burst into tears! Charlie came and sat with Mama that first day and several other times. God provided people to come and sit with my mother every day for weeks until she was able to go back to her home.
Just as God used the manna to teach the Israelites to trust him day by day (Exodus 16), he used the stranger to teach me. During this pandemic, we don’t know what the future holds. We can’t predict what will happen next. What we do know is that God is faithful. He is trustworthy. He will take care of us. When we ask God, he will help us learn to trust him for what we and our families need. He will send us “manna” one day at the time!
I pray that my story encourages you during this time.
Anne Sherman
Holy Trinity Member and Nursery Coordinator, Trinity Kids Interim Leadership Team
*This article has been republished from the Holy Trinity Student Ministry weekly newsletter dated May 20, 2020. If you would like to receive this information-rich newsletter, subscribe now.
