OPINION

This post was written for Five Minute Friday 

Word prompt--OPINION

Five minutes to free write about it 

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Back in the day I used to have many opinions and was very outspoken about them. Now not so much. I mean, I still sometimes have opinions, but mostly keep them to myself.

Back in my outspoken, opinionated days I often had regrets because many of my opinions had been based on faulty judgments, or jumping to the wrong conclusions about people or things. 

Fast forward to the present day.

Recently I have been of the opinion that it was time to stop procrastinating about throwing out the remnants of my dead and dying plants still out on the balcony. I was going to do it yesterday, but it rained hard all day.

This morning I overslept and was too late to make it to the early service at church. It was drizzling out and looking very dreary, so my opinion was that I should go back to sleep and watch the service on Livestream later. The Lord, however, had a different plan.

He convicted me to get up and get dressed and go to the second service, which in my foggy state of mind I thought was about to start in half an hour. He also convicted me to text my next door neighbor and ask her if she wanted to join me. 

I started quickly throwing on some clothes, but she did not answer, so I was of the opinion that meant it was okay not to go. Wrong!

The conviction to get going was so strong that I rushed out the door without eating anything or taking my supplements, or doing any of the things I would normally do before leaving the house. 

I made it to church right on the dot. Or so I thought. There were no greeters outside the door, and the pastor was up on the stage instead of the worship team. Turns out I was early. Half an hour early. I had arrived just as the first service was ending.

It felt strange walking into an empty sanctuary, but it brought back memories of how years ago before the pandemic I used to come early and pray over the chairs. I checked my messages again to see if my neighbor had responded. She had, but only to tell me she was glad I had gotten some extra sleep.

My opinion was that she was not interested in coming to church today but I texted her back anyway to tell her I had been wrong about the time, and it was not too late for her to join me. I told her where I was sitting in the back corner of the room and that there was an empty seat next to mine. 

In my opinion, she was not going to come so I probably shouldn't be reserving the empty seat for her, but I did. About halfway through the praise and worship I checked my phone again and to my surprise, saw a message that she was on her way in. 

The sermon turned out to be just what my neighbor needed to hear today, and the events of this morning turned out to be part of a God-orchestrated plan to get her here. 

As for me, I felt very blessed and privileged to have been used as part of this Divine appointment. And as for those plants I had been procrastinating about bringing inside, when I went out on the balcony with trash bag in hand after getting home from church, I was in for another surprise.