WRONG NUMBER

I met a wonderful lady yesterday, completely by accident. We arrived home last night after being gone all day. We checked the answering machine and there was a message from a woman sending "Happy Mother's Day" greetings and also saying thank you for the beautiful flowers. We knew this was a wrong number. I checked the Caller ID and saw that it was from someone named Rose and didn't recognize the area code as being one from around our parts. I knew if I didn't call this person back I was going to sleep terribly wondering about it (I ended up sleeping terribly anyway, but not because of this situation). Anyway, I certainly didn't want her thinking that her message got through to the right person and that all was well. So, I called her back. Turns out Rose lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She lives in a retirement facility where her son is the presiding Episcopal Priest. She just moved there from either North or South Carolina...can't remember which..where she had lived for 21 years. Apparently, the message she left on our answering machine was for her daughter, who lives in our town. Instead of dialing xxx-xxx-xx22, she dialed xxx-xxx-xx33. She apologized and apologized, to which I told her no apology was necessary. I was happy to do it and to visit with her. The story gets even more interesting as her daughter's married name is "Johnson." Our last name is "Johnson." Her grand-daughter also lives here and her great-grandchildren go to school here. We talked about the Pentecost celebrations we had at each of our churches and she told me about how her son told everyone to take a deep breath and when he said "go" they were to all blow and the pascal candle was blown out. She told me about her daughter that lives here, her son who lives in Arizona and her son that lives where she does. Scott couldn't figure out who I was talking to for so long...probably at least 15 to 20 minutes...and he laughed when I told him I was talking to the lady who dialed our number by mistake.

Was this really a mistake in dialing or did God just want me to meet Rose, to be briefly touched by her charm, her sweetness and her obviously love of her family? I don't know about you, but I think it was the latter.

Peace.
Jeanine