Thanksgiving was just another workday at the 24-hour truck stop where I’ve been a waitress for 11 years. One Thanksgiving a few years back, one of my customers was a solo trucker. I brought his plate of food to his table, but he didn’t look up. He was talking on the phone.
I set down his order and couldn’t help but notice that he was crying.
Lord, I hate to see anyone so sad on Thanksgiving, I thought as I headed back to the kitchen. If I had to work on the holiday, I wanted to be a real help to someone.
I returned to his table.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” the man said. He explained that his wife was asking him for a divorce. “I wish I could talk to her about it in person,” he said, “but I’m on the road for three whole days more.”
Those three days, I knew, would seem like forever.
“I want you to write your name and your wife’s name on this piece of paper,” I said, putting my order pad and pen down on the table in front of him. “I’m going to pray for the two of you.”
He looked surprised, but he wrote down the names.
“I don’t know if it will do any good, but I sure appreciate it,” he said.
“No problem,” I said, tearing off the sheet and tucking it into my pocket. “Be sure to come back and tell me when the prayer is answered!”
I didn’t wait on him again for 12 whole months. But on Thanksgiving night the following year, I kept my eye out for him, and suddenly there he was, sitting in my station.
“Those prayers of yours really did the trick!” he announced when I came over to his table to take his order. “My wife and I worked things out. In fact, we recently had our first baby!”
God is always open for prayers—24 hours a day.
