I’d like to share to you my story of an answered prayer. It happened on April 14, 2009. My husband and I had to do errands. I told my husband to take our son to the car while I did last a minute check in the house and locked it. I usually say a silent prayer before I go out but this day was different. You see, like many other families during this economically challenging time, we are dealing with some financial constraints, and feelings of uncertainty of what the future holds for us was on my mind this day. I felt that I had to say a prayer out loud and talk to God, because I wanted so much for God to come down from heaven and sit beside me and tell me “Everything will be okay, child.”

After that, our first stop was to our bank; we had to close our account. As soon as I dug into my bag for my wallet, I realized that I had left my wallet at home; I couldn’t close my account without my ID. So, I took my son and told my husband that we will just wait for him in the car. As I opened the door I saw a man sitting in his SUV with his door opened. He was looking at me but I just didn’t mind him. But as I opened the door to our car I heard a voice in a Tagalog accent say, “Magandang Umaga! Kamusta ka?” (Good Morning! How are you?) I looked back and it was the man inside the SUV, this time smiling back at me. He had had this mild mannered face, with a warm smile, but I kept myself cautious, asking him how he knew that I am a Filipino, and where he learned to speak Tagalog. The man didn’t answer my question. Instead, he looked at my son and said, “I am Grandpa Ernest”; he then held his arms up high and smiled to my son.

By this time I thought that he might be a psychopath or a child molester! And so I held my son’s hand tight. My son on the other hand just looked at his fascinating smile and smiled back. But for me, being a Mom, I had felt uncomfortable with this. And that’s when Ernest decided to go down from his SUV and came towards us. I asked him again the same question, “How do you know I am a Filipino? And where did you learn how to speak Tagalog?.” He came up to me and said, “From kind people like you.” And then he smiled. The first thing that Ernest did was to go up to my son, placing his hand on my son’s head and said “In the name of the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, God is with you..God bless you”. My son smiled.

Ernest then looked at me and patted my shoulder, looking into my eyes with his warm eyes, and suddenly the fear of him being a stranger somehow disappeared. Ernest said, “And you! young lady; I want to let you know that everything will be alright.” He then placed his hands on my head and said “In the name of the Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit..Go in peace, God is with you and God bless you.” Then he hugged me and patted my back, like a Father to a daughter. As he hugged me I had tears in my eyes, because I remembered what I had asked God for and it was a warm feeling as if God was there to tell me personally that everything was going to be alright; yet in the form of an old man.

Ernest was wearing a jacket with a patch called SECURITAS; so I asked him if he was a security guard in one of the offices in the area. He said no. I continued to ask him where he worked, why he was there, and what he was doing, all questions coming out of my mouth because of what I had prayed for earlier that day. All Ernest did was smile and raised his shoulders as if to say “I don’t know the answer” (you know.. that kind of look). By that time my husband just got out of the bank and saw me; he looked confused as to who the person was that I was talking to. So, Ernest decided to go back to his SUV but he looked at my husband from a distance and said, “God bless you my son..Peace be with you.”

Soon, Ernest drove away. As we sat in the car my husband noticed that I had tears in my eyes. He asked me why I was crying, but I couldn’t speak. He spoke as I was crying and said that in all these years not one person has told him “Peace be with you” and said it was strange to meet a person like Ernest. I finally got over my crying and told my husband about my prayer in the house which was the reason why it took me awhile to get out. And for an old man to show up in the parking lot and give us a blessing and to tell me that everything would be alright seemed to be kind of coincidental. That to me was an amazing encounter with God.

I always think of God as someone who can see me from His Throne above in the heavens, watching over me; but God used an old man to let me feel His Fatherly love, to tell me that all would be well, even though problems would arise; He said “I will be with you, even unto the end of the world.” I am thankful to God for the experience I had that day; never in my life had I experienced such a thing. I am assured that God’s presence is always there for us.

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