God really has a way of pointing things out in a way that is truly unmistakable.
Last night, our out-of-office event ended earlier than I expected. I was about to meet some brothers from the community to accompany me to our weekly prayer meeting at 7 PM at a train station (MRT Taft Avenue) to get to Pedro Gil. Yet, it was only minutes after 5PM and I was so near the station before that. With lots of time to waste, and knowing the venue enough and the way to get there, I opted to take the service bus going the other way and planned to get off at another train station instead (LRT 2 Katipunan Station) to get me to Manila. A longer route, more tiring perhaps, but I simply followed my “instincts”.
At first I thought I was not going to make it on time. The bus got caught in a traffic and forgot to stop at the corner I was supposed to get off. It had to make U-turns to bring me back to that exact same spot and of course, that took some precious minutes already.
Well, as night fell already and I was not that familiar with the surroundings, I did not realize the station I was looking for was underground… and I was looking for something like the skyway for that is what is familiar with me. I only realized my predicament after about half a kilometer perhaps, when I asked around for the station. Yeah, only to find out it was just a few meters from where the bus left me. Lesson 1: ASK when you know you do not know.
So I boarded the train, went off at the last station, walked the labyrinthine walkways to the other railway transit (LRT1), took some cash from the ATM to pay a friend, went to buy my ticket and went to the platform area. A train passed at the other direction-northbound… Then, another… after some more minutes, another. But not southbound. I was beginning to get impatient. I was early but I thought I was not going to make it on time and only because the trains were late?
I asked myself at first whether God wanted me to come here in the first place. For your see, I was waiting for a text message from my mom whether we would go to an important meeting tomorrow or not but she has not answered at all. I was having thoughts of going home instead to ask her rather than go to the PM. God must have something up his sleeve, I mused. God has a purpose, I rationalized. Okay, in truth I silently told Him, You must have some explanation on this?
Finally, our train arrived. When I got off at Pedro Gil, a sister saw me and told me that a brother was with her too. When finally we met together, they confessed that they did not know how to get to the place we were suppose to hold our meeting and was only too glad to have me with them to guide them. And as we went our way and turned to the corner of a street, I found another sister asking her way from strangers. I immediately asked if she is part of our community and was going to the prayer meeting as well. Her answer was affirmative.
Later during the prayer meeting, our national director gave a short presentation and quoted Pope John Paul II, ““In the designs of Providence there are no mere coincidences.”
This simple and unplanned coincidences made me smile. God gave me the answer I was looking for.
