Upon returning home from food shopping, I had to park my van a block and a half from where I live. It was difficult for me to carry the heavy food packages and my pocketbook, but I managed to get to the beginning of my block. I then decided to stop, put the packages down, and rearrange them so I’d make it home with heavy packages intact. But after a few more steps, I just couldn’t proceed further. I stopped again, put down my packages, and said in my mind, “Hashem, what am I going to do? I’m so close to home, and yet I can’t get there.” I felt like I couldn’t move on.
Suddenly, one of my son’s former teachers who saw me struggling gave me a nice warm welcome and asked if she could help me. She said her van was parked nearby and that she’d be happy to give me a ride down the block to my home. I was relieved and told her that I just asked Hashem to please help me, and she said, “You see, I was your shaliach to help you.” She told me that her family member writes a list of things that she requests Hashem to help her with, and slowly – with Hashem’s help and her bitachon – each item on the list gets crossed off.
What a powerful lesson this was to me. All of us, in our own way, have our own “package” or “packages” in life that we may feel we can’t handle. Indeed life presents us with daily and sudden unexpected challenges. We need to ask Hashem, our father who loves us, for help, and have bitachon that we will be successful in meeting the challenges. Hashem can send a sudden shaliach, can produce a sudden recovery from an illness, or provide something else one desires.
I happily made it home with all my packages intact, and with this powerful lesson: we need to have faith that Hashem will help us with our packages.
“Kavei el Hashem chazak veya’ametz libecha v’kavei el Hashem.”
