I had a lovely conversation with my eye doctor on Monday. Afterward, as often happens, I couldn’t remember how I ended up telling her our Japan story. Later, it occurred to me that it began with her asking me about our Thanksgiving plans.

In the process of talking about that, I told her, “Our family is sort of different… one of our daughters came to live with us when she was 18, and has been ours every since. We are Papa and Grandma to her kids and Mom and Dad to her and her husband. Then our son raised a boy who wasn’t his biological child either, and he became our first grandson. We love them all so much. Our family has never been about blood.

She responded, “I think that’s wonderful!”

Then I added, “When we were in Japan, that was hard for our Japanese friends to understand because, to most of them, families were all about blood.”

“Were you in Japan for a long time?” Dr. M asked.

“We were there as missionaries for a year while my husband took a year’s leave of absence from his job at a branch campus of Penn State. Then we went back to the States, he taught for four more years and took an early retirement. At that time, we returned to Japan for three years.“

Lest she think this had been in our plans, I continued, “It wasn’t something we planned to do. My husband intended to teach until he was 70. He loved his job.”

“So you were older when God called you and your husband to Japan?”

“Yes, the year I was fifty, God began to speak to me about Japan, and my husband is three years older. We thought, ‘What can two fifty-something-year-old people who don’t speak the language do in Japan?”

My eye doctor chuckled and I continued, “It was one of those times where we had to say “yes” to God before we understood why.”

She responded,”That’s so awesome.”

“After we said yes, it became so clear.” I explained that I am a writer and love words and people, so teaching conversational English was a perfect fit for me. My husband is a math major so working in the treasurer’s office was a good fit for him.”

Doctor M seemed so involved in the story that I went on to tell her about God speaking to me in the night and then confirming His call to me through a book of my mother’s that she had given to me before she died. In the front of the book in my mother’s handwriting, it said, “This book traveled across the ocean to Japan in 1945 and came back a year later in 1946.“

I finished by saying, “I don’t think God will tell us what He wants us to do until He knows we will obey. Too often our attitude is, “My mother thinks I should do this; my best friend thinks I should do that, and God wants me to do something else. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”

“Most of all,” I concluded, “more than anything, I want people to know that we serve a God who speaks, if we will listen and obey.”

By now, Dr. M’s eyes were shining and filled with something else I didn’t understand. “Wait until I tell you what happened this morning,” she said. “I got out my calendar and noticed a meeting on Sunday that I’d put on my calendar about a mission trip that is coming up. I thought, I don’t know if I should do this or not. Maybe it’s not a good time.”

When I started my story, I had no idea where Dr. M was spiritually, but off and on as we talked, her eyes had sparkled and she had nodded her head which prompted me to continue. But I had no idea God was using my story to speak to her about attending the meeting on her calendar about a mission trip at her church.

We continued to talk after Dr. M gave me the report from my testing. She kept saying “I can’t wait to tell Alex (her husband) what you told me today!” I promised I would keep her in my prayers.

 I left that appointment in awe of the way God can use us to speak His words to people even when we have no idea what He’s saying to them or why. It reminded me of a line from the song, Take My Life, “Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee.”  And reminded me once again why God told me many years ago that going to my doctors’ appointments isn’t a waste of time.

Father, enable us to be the mouthpiece of Jesus as we live our everyday lives for you. Fill our mouths with messages from you. Amen.