Make a Difference Monday

Here I am again trying to explain my absence in the empty nest.  I have no good excuse and really shouldn't even try to pretend that I do.  I just simply haven't taken the time to sit down and blog what is happening in my life and in my mind.  I do have so very much to tell you!  Life is moving at light speed and Ashley's wedding will be here before we know it.  We have been working on plans and they are coming along nicely.  I spent last weekend in Evansville helping Princess Lena move into her new "grown up" apartment.  No more roommates, dorm rooms or shared space with her sister!  Lena is now the proud resident of Copper Creek Apartments on the west side of the 'Ville!  Her decorating savey would impress the best design on a dime show and I have to admit...She impressed her Momma.  She purchased everything (second hand) all on her own.  She had a vision for what she wanted her apartment to look like and I would say she pulled it off in a BIG way! 

How, you ask, does this fit into the title of Make a Difference Monday?  Well, I left Evansville on Monday and headed home.  It was a beautiful, warm, practically perfect day so I decided to stop in Terre Haute and do a little dress shopping for the wedding.  Pretty uncharacteristic of me to stop but something just told me I needed to.  Perhaps it was to find a dress for the wedding or perhaps it was something bigger.  I did find a dress, picked out by a complete stranger who offered me his "man opinion" !  As I got back in my car, I noticed a girl probably about the same age as mine, standing outside the store crying her little heart out.  I noticed her and that was about it.  I got in the car and drove out of the parking lot.  Well, sort of.  I started to pull back onto the highway and the Lord just compelled me to turn my car around and go back.  I know I startled her when I approached her but I just said to her..."Honey, I have no idea what you are dealing with but I want you to know that it is really going to be okay".  I asked her if she needed a hug and she shook her head yes and just began sobbing on my shoulder.  She told me that she had just found out that the store she works at is closing and that she would soon be out of a job.  She had just moved to a new apartment and had no idea how she was going to pay for it.  We sat on a bench and I just held her hand and told her that sometimes, life isn't what you have planned.  God has a bigger plan and sometimes what seems horrible at the time is really just a stepping stone to something so much better.  We sat there for the longest time and just chatted.  I am sure that I was there in that mall looking for a dress because the Lord knew she needed me and the funny thing is, I think I needed her!  We parted and I realized I never got her name or gave her mine but at that point it really didn't matter.  What mattered was that for that brief moment of time we were together which is exactly what God had planned.