Walk by Faith: Part Four

Have you ever stayed four hours at a gas station, praying for God to have mercy on your soul?  I would not recommend it.  The exciting part of hitch hiking is that you can be waiting for hours on end waiting for a compassionate stranger to give you a ride, or you can be picked up by the first car that passes by.  Hopelessness is easy to come by when you have been passed by at least one hundred cars and have asked another twenty drivers and no one claims to be going your way.   God is so good though, and when you have resorted to laying on the grass and crying out to God to shower His grace upon you, that is usually when He pushes you a little farther, asks to trust Him a little longer, and challenges your patience a little more.  And after that is done, when you feel the panic of the setting sun and the sketchy truck drivers all around you, then and only then is when God sends you the perfect person to pick you up.  Disclaimer: That is not how all stories go, and God does not always choose to work that way, but that is how it went for us!   After the long wait at the gas station the moment we were dropped off 30 minutes from our destination another car drives by, sees our thumbs and stops.  This was probably my favorite person I met while hitch hiking, A shy, non English speaking,danish man.  Even within the little conversation we had you could just tell that he was a hard working, compassionate, generous man.  He was on his way back from Copenhagen (two and a half hours away)  and he had been working construction all day.  Instead of driving us to his town, which was his final destination, he added an extra forty minutes to his trip and drove us straight to the dock where we wanted to catch the ferry.  May God truly bless that sweet man.  Thanks to him we made it right before the ferry to Germany was about to leave, so we bought our tickets and hopped on.  Our expectations were high as we set sail towards this new land.  Little did we know on the other side of the sea laid a big field of nothingness and no possibilities. We made a small attempt to hitch hike to Hamburg, asked a few people if we could sleep in their front yards, and ended the night at the train station.  Intrigued by Ingunn laying on the floor of the station, a man asked us what we were doing, exhausted and hungry we honestly shared with him how our plans had taken a different path and how we ended up in this sticky situation.  He felt so sorry for us he gave us 6 euros to buy an ice cream (Praise The Lord) and then came back from home to bring us water and beer (at least we now had water).  To him it may have been a small gesture, or he may have not even given it a thought but to me it really was a testimony of Gods faithfulness,  for that afternoon I expressed how I was craving ice cream.  God loves to surprise us and bless us, in big ways and in small ways too.  I love how He is so creative in the way He reveals Himself to us :) Sleeping bag unrolled, teeth brushed, eyes drooping, we snuggled up to the floor of the German train station.  One thing I am beyond thankful for is the gift that God has bestowed upon me, the gift to sleep any where, on any surface, at any time.  While some may think sleeping on a tiled floor is their worst nightmare I actually was able to have a somewhat decent night of sleep.  I was always reminded that even in circumstances we considered rough, we still had it better then a lot of people out in the world.  We were indoors, we were warm enough, we had our own sleeping bags, we weren't fearing for our lives.  In those moments God reminded me to be aware and be grateful for the things I take for granted on a daily basis.Even through the difficult situation there is always a lesson God is wanting to teach you if you only open your heart to what He wants to say!  We made it through the night safely, a kind German security guard checked in on us every few hours or so, and the next morning he graciously put us back on the ferry for free!! We had officially started the journey home again! Come back tomorrow to hear the final part of Walk by Faith...