I shared this occurance with my Community group and the leader keeps asking me when I'm going to post it so here goes:
Have you ever had an encounter that took your breath away?  I did a few weeks ago.  It was a rainy afternoon.  I was headed out to visit with family members.  As I was on the freeway, there were places where it was raining heavily and then stretches where it wasn't raining at all.  I exited the freeway and was headed west.  The sky was quite dark with heavy clouds.  All of a sudden a light began to pierce through the clouds.  It quickly got brighter and brighter.  The first flash of thought was, "Is this how it will be when Christ comes back to earth to call us to heaven?"  It flooded my heart with joy and tears actually came to my eyes at the thought of His returning.  Within a few seconds I realized that it was an airplane with its lights on, decending from above the clouds, getting ready to land.  It obviously was NOT His return to take us out of this world.  But that wasn't and isn't the point, and the blessing still remains.  It still takes my breath away to contemplate that one day we will be taken up in the air to meet Him and leave this world with Him.  The thought that still brings tears to my eyes for the opposite reason is knowing that there are still those that I love on this earth that would not be in that group who rise to meet Him.  Then I ask myself, am I doing all I can to shine His light on those whom I love who need Him?

-Anonymous

This is the story of my trip to Chicago on 9/26/2010 May seem fictional but...sadly its NOT. On the week of 9/19 we got word that my Grandmother, who has been in bad health with cancer, was not doing well and was given 3-5 days to live by the doctors overseeing her care. My family, having just lost our father about a month ago, wanted to go see her one last time and if the circumstances would have it, stay for her funeral. So we decided to drive out from Phoenix to Chicago on 9/26 (Sunday) there would be my mother’s Astro van and a Nissan that I would borrow from my friend, to get us there. We took off with me driving the 2006 Nissan Sentra 4 dr. Having my mother in the passenger’s seat, my 5 year old daughter, 7 year old niece and 19 year old sister in the back seats. We left the valley with out a hitch, stopping about every 2 hours to stretch. We drove about 7 hours at which time we were about 60-65 mile from Albuquerque, NM It was about 3pm when I told my sister, “You take over driving so I can rest up for driving at night” Due to that the seating arrangement had changed, My older sister driving, mom still in passenger’s seat, me right behind driver, youngest sister in the middle and 11 y/o nephew on the other end. We decided to move the little girls the Van that was following us. This is where things get crazy---

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God is so good. I thank God first and foremost for how He has saved me and my family...and for how He has given us a hope and a purpose. When my wife & I heard about this 90 Day Challenge, we knew we were about to be stretched--(for we have had to take a pay cut this year)--but we still felt led to increase our giving and give back to the Lord. It was no less than 24 hours later, after turning in our Commitment Card, that my grandmother calls out-of-the-blue, and asks if we needed any extra money. I was blown away...after paying all of the bills, we really didn't have much left (and we really didn't want to use the credit card)...and then God has my grandmother call to ask us if we needed any extra money...crazy? I know that God's promise to "bless" in Malachi 3:10 does NOT mean it will always be in the form of finances...I get that & I believe it. For in retrospect, I really see this out-of-the-blue phone call from my grandmother as something that blessed us in our faith...MUCH MORE...than in our finances. God is so good.

-Anonymous