A Friend of Your Neighbors

Kaye visited her mom and took her for an early supper. “Mom said she wouldn't need her cane as she would not be doing much walking,” Kaye says, “so we left it home.” (She won't make that mistake again!) When they got back to the house, Kaye went around to the passenger side to help her mother. But Mom had already gotten out. “The ground was uneven and she twisted her ankle,” Kaye says. “She fell over backwards before I could grab her. I tried to help her up, but she was not cooperating and allowing me to take her weight.” What should they do?

The farmhouse is set back from the highway. Vehicles were going past, and Kaye prayed that someone she knew would come by, and notice that they needed help. But no one did. Perhaps she should go into her mother’s house, and get the cane and a chair. Maybe they could brace themselves and pull Mom to her feet. She hated to leave her mother, but there was no other way.

“I had gone down the driveway and was in the house looking for the cane when I heard a man's voice calling,” says Kaye. “A man I did not know was at the door, asking if I needed help. He said he was driving by and noticed my mom sitting on the ground up against the car, with the car door opened, and thought something must be wrong.”

He must be a friend of Mom’s, Kaye thought, and explained the situation. “I don’t know you, but I’m certainly glad you came by,” she told him.

“You aren’t likely to know me,” the man answered. “I’m a friend of one of your neighbors.” His attitude was so relaxed that Kaye didn’t give a thought for her own safety. Instead, the man accompanied Kaye back to the car, lifted her mother up and onto her cane. The three then slowly made their way back to the house. “Once she was inside, I thanked him again and he left. I still had no idea who he was but he was there when we needed him.”

Kaye got Mom settled, and she was feeling much better when she left. When she got home, she called her mother again. All was still well. “I’m glad that man came by, whoever he was,” her mother told Kaye. “He was a big help.”

“He said he was a friend of your neighbor,” Kaye said. She was starting to get goosebumps.

“I never saw him before,” her mother told her. “I thought you knew him.”

But she had prayed, hadn’t she? Kate thought. She had asked for help, and help was provided. “One never knows how God will get a message across or who he will send to deliver the message to us,” Kaye says. “One must remember that you only have to ask.”

Joan Anderson Copyrighted by Joan Wester Anderson, used with permission. Originally appeared on the Where Angels Walk website, http://joanwanderson.com