From our own personal experience, a true story, as my husband tells it:
The Hitchhikers (c) 1999 (c) 2013 by John and Midge Baker
A thumb goes up, a car goes by, it's nearly 1:00 am and here am I, hitchin' a ride, hitchin' a ride...
This song is going through my head over and over as we're walking down the I-5 onramp with our thumbs stuck out. Get out of my head I scream silently. It's something I learned while working for the carnival.
You know how sometimes a song will stick in your head? Sometimes all day? Well usually those four words will break the spell, but not this time. DARN IT!
We're just coming off the onramp in Grants Pass Oregon, my new bride and I, off to a new job in Portland. We have just 24 hours to meet our new employer, some 350 miles away at an obscure boat dock on the Columbia river. We're not sure where it is exactly, or even how we're going to get there by tomorrow morning so that we don't lose the job. But hunger and homelessness are great faith builders...so here we are, nothing to lose so to speak.
One thing we DO have, my wife and I and that's faith. So having asked Papa -- as we like to refer to Him -- to once again, if it be His will, to please help us out here.
Five minutes later a big beautiful black semi truck and trailer stops and away we go...off on another adventure! "
"Where you goin' ?" the big, friendly, smiling truck driver asks us as we climb into his rig.
We tell him and he smiles and says we'll be in Portland tonight! "Do you want something to eat?" he asks.."I'm stopping in Roseburg at McDonalds and I know you probably don't have any money, so I'm buying."
After the best meal we've had in several weeks, we are leaving Roseburg and on the road again with our new friend, Galen (we didn't realize until much later that Galen and Angel have the same letters).
We keep pinching each other and trying to see where he keeps his wings...but he's good! No sign of 'em!
Hours later as we're coming into Salem, Galen looks at me and asks if I'd like to make some money. Being broke, I naturally said sure!
"Well I've got to pick up a load here and my company lets me use lumpers to help me out..they reimburse me."
Pretty soon, here we are at this HUGE warehouse, with about forty trucks ahead of us. I'm thinking, man, we're going to be here all night! Not so, though, our angel, Galen calmly gets out and walks right past all those other impatient, pissed off, been-waiting-for-hours drivers and into the warehouse. Ten minutes later, grinning and waving to his fellow drivers, he pulls our 18 wheeler around the warehouse to the only open slip and backs in.
He lets me help him with the doors....and half my "job" is done.
For the next 45 minutes he lets me watch him load his truck with a stand up type forklift. He then pulls the truck away from the loading slip and I help him close the doors....and that completes the second half of my "job"!
Thanking me for the help, he has me sign my name on a form so he can get his money back. Then he hands me 40 dollars(!) and we climb back into the truck.
I sit down next to my wife and hand her the money.
Thank you, Papa, bless him Papa... my wife and I quietly pray.
"What's that?" asks Galen with a grin.
"Nothing!" we answer as we try to hide our tears of gratitude.
As we arrive in Portland, it's not even dark yet.
Galen pulls into a Burns Brothers truck stop and parks his truck. He leads us to a combination office, store and lounge and waits while we call our new boss.
I get him on the line and guess what?...The dock is only 5 miles down the very road we are on!
We tell our friendly truck driver the news and he smiles again and says "You two can stay in my sleeper tonight then and I'll take you over there in the morning."
Well, what could we say?
Next morning saw us sitting on a river barge headed upstream toward Government Island and our new job.
Thanks Papa!
You can't tell US our God don't care!
Update: I was inspired to post this story by pajoly's diary Angels Among Us?
You'd be surprised how often things like this happen. Google "angels" and you'll find thousands of such stories.
I've had several more such incidents in my own life.
Call it God, karma, or even synchronicity, ask and ye shall receive may be a fundamental priciple of the Universe.