Good things are happening

by Peter Twitchell

I guess maybe I was lookin’ a little down when a black gentleman walked up to me and asked me, “how you doin’ friend?”
Deep down I had feelings that were connected to this world and to be honest, I was deep down in despair.
You tend to get drug down into a deep and bottomless pit when you let the world around you dictate to you how you’re supposed to feel about everything that is wrong around you, and not feeling everything that is right.
The world we live in is a dark place. It can be anything we love and care about going wrong and we feel a great sense of hurt and pain.
This black gentleman brought me to the present moment. I smiled at him, and my focus turned to what is good in my life. Right away I felt of the spirit of Creator God reaching out to me in my moment of despair. Disparity can make me feel helpless, alone, lonely, and trapped.
The black gentleman was like a light in my darkness. There I was standing in line at the bank in one of Anchorage’s supermarkets. He said, “You know, Anchorage is never going to become a concrete jungle,” adding, “Jesus will come before that happens! You have a great day,” as he slipped into the teller next to me.
I thought, “God, you are amazing!” Early the next morning I read in the Anchorage Daily News that a couple had been united in holy matrimony at Bean’s Café. Good things are happening around us and it made me realize as I was writing this that God is in everything we do, think and say. For instance “G.O.D.” is in the word good.
Today I ran into a couple old friends of mine at the Eagle River Bear Paw Festival – Clyde Pavil and Francine Vaska formerly of Bethel and that was good!