Complimentary Story
Editor, Wisconsin Christian News:The local newspaper recently reported that 70 women had been on the streets in Hayward, Wisconsin, marching and expressing their opinions on a variety of issues. I’m a woman but I wasn’t motivated to attend. Nobody prevented me from getting an education, working a job, owning a business, going to church, speaking my mind, or other. Should I march, then, for immigrants perhaps, or minorities? I am an immigrant (and a minority, in these parts). People look at me and say “where does your accent come from?”
A long time ago, I applied for a permit to live in the United States. My husband and I had to travel to the American Embassy in Frankfurt, Germany, waited all day for the Consul to see me, and I was told that perhaps he would not see me at all on that day. We took a chance, followed orders and didn’t question them. Without a scheduled appointment with the Consul, we could only hope that he would have time for me. It never occurred to me to not follow the law. As Christians, we don’t always listen nor do we want to follow God’s “marching orders.” If we hear them at all, they are often inconvenient.
When we vacationed in Spain, a women spoke to me at one of the gift stores in Santa Ponca, Mallorca. It was in the off season, and there weren’t any other people in the store except our group of four and this woman. She told me that she lived in Munich, Germany, and was waiting for the bus scheduled to go to the Palma airport. Actually, she was there to just see if she could rely on the bus to come on time, because her flight home was the next day, and she wanted to take that bus to the airport. Waiting, she shared with me how very frustrated she was with her realtor who was offering her property for sale. This realtor had said to her on the previous day “if you don’t go down with the price, the buyer will look for another property.” She also shared with me that she had not slept well because of this, but had decided that she would trust in “the One above” for the sale of her real estate.
I knew what she meant, and that is just how a German would say it, referring to God. He is “the One above.” My husband and our friends were probably wondering what I talked to that stranger about, but she was doing most of the talking, and for some reason I had stayed and listened. She said that I should trust in God too, and that things would work out at the right time!
That was the end of our conversation, and my encounter in the gift store. The stranger had become a friend.
In order to follow God’s marching orders, it is foremost important to listen! That’s the only way to find out what the marching orders are! Listening is a skill that has become extinct. On that day, the orders were quite clear. God said “trust Me” through a stranger.
I am glad that I was listening.
- Elisabeth Braeuner,
Hayward, Wis.
