Nudged by God

It’s easy – or comparatively easy – to believe that God may talk to us about things of global importance, but hard to listen and take seriously those illogical inner promptings that are sometimes just odd thoughts but sometimes are a genuine nudge from God to do, or not do, something.
I’ve had a walking-through-treacle week – the end of a virus, combined with some uphill circumstances – and have felt disinclined to do more than absolutely necessary.
That was ok because my diary was fairly empty and the things that were in it weren’t of world-shattering importance, for instance having my hair cut on Monday morning. So I decided to phone up as soon as the salon opened and postpone the appointment till next week.
I don’t like having my hair done, at the best of times. It’s better than going to the dentist, but only marginally so. It’s only made bearable by the fact that I’ve known my hairdresser for years and she has become a friend. She and her family came here from Afghanistan as asylum seekers when Taliban terrorists shot and injured her husband and murdered her brother-in-law in front of his children.
In the nine or ten years they’ve been in England, their lives have not been in danger and some circumstances have improved, but one crisis after another has befallen the family. Every time I see her, I hope something nice will have happened – because surely there are no tragedies left in the book. They’ve been through them all.
But …. Monday morning, I was about to pick up the phone and explain my germ-ridden status as a reason for not dragging myself out of the house to the hair salon, when I felt one of those nudges from God.
I ignored it. As you do. The world was not going to end if I rang up and cancelled a hair appointment.
I was going to pick up the phone.
Only, somehow, I couldn’t. It felt wrong.
It didn’t seem worth praying about such a minor thing.
On the other hand …. I sat down and prayed for a minute. And really felt God – or something – telling me to go ahead with the appointment. It wasn’t me. I didn’t want to.
But why would God tell someone to get a haircut?
That would be nonsense.
Surely?
I didn’t make the phone call and cancel the appointment. I went to the salon, and the minute I saw her it was clear there was something very wrong.
However bad she’s feeling, when I say ‘How are you?’ she always says, professionally, ‘I’m fine.’ The truth comes out later, when she’s halfway through the fringe and the boss isn’t listening.
This time she just said, ‘I’m glad it’s you,’ put her arms round me and cried. ‘My mum died.’
It was her first day back at work after the funeral. And I was her first appointment.
An appointment I nearly cancelled because I couldn’t be bothered to go and couldn’t believe that something so trivial would matter to God.
Thank God it did.