Encouragement from an unexpected source

Today was a hectic day. It was my first day teaching at Children's Park for the year. I have almost twice as many students as I did last year, I lost my room (teaching in a hallway) and I get paid the same. Funny huh? Last year I definitely would have cared about those things, but this year I am just so grateful to have the job. It's all about the money at this point. Following my three classes there I went to the School of Music and taught 2 Kindermusik classes. All this was on the coattails of one of the hardest nights of my entire life. See, last night the kids and I returned from the lake. We met Chris to let him have some time with them. We sat the kids down and broke "the news" to them. We told them that daddy wasn't coming home anymore. We told them that he had his own place to live now. And the clincher... mommy and daddy aren't going to be married anymore. Benjamin just kept looking at me like, "You're kidding, right?" He was definitely looking for some kind of assurance that things were going to be okay. Chris did a good job of calming any fears that he had about the future. He assured him that he would be okay, that he would be happy and taken care of. Benjamin seemed content with that.
I left the 3 of them there at the train station with a huge hole in my chest. This did not seem right. How could it be? It only got worse from there because I came home, alone to a half empty house. My bedroom was a bare shell, the garage not as empty as I hoped and the closet we once shared was now bare of all his belongings. The room and the closet looked exactly how I felt...empty and in shambles.
Sweet Jenni came over last night, brought me dinner and chocolate cake and then helped me sort some things out around the house. I felt better after she left with the way things looked in the house. But honestly, my heart felt about the same.
Today was a new day with new mercies and busyness that helped camouflage for the moment the hole I had been feeling in my heart. But then, something out of the blue brought immense encouragement to my heart. It all started when it was feeling quite warm in the house. I realized the AC was not working because the digital control needed a new battery. I called the front office and they sent our trusty maintenance man, Mr. Carlos over right away to change it out. After Carlos changed the battery, which is located right off the master bedroom, he glanced in my room and asked where all my furniture had gone. I gave him a brief synopsis of the situation and he just stared at me in complete shock. He just looked at me with the most puzzled look. I started to think that maybe we were having a language barrier issue, so I started to re-explain. He assured me that he had understood perfectly what I said, but that he just didn't understand. He said that it just didn't make sense. Looking truly baffled he listed all the reasons that it was obvious even from an outsider that my husband had made a poor choice. He said that we were known in the front office as "the nice family" and that he always felt warmth whenever he walked through our front door. He said that any man that would give up a beautiful wife who created a warm home for him and 2 beautiful children was crazy. He went on to share his faith in God with me, which I assured him that I shared. He looked at me with the utmost sincerity and told me that I was going to be okay. God was going to take care of me. And more than that, I would smile again one day, sooner than I thought. I believed him. I believed every word he said.
When he left, my house was beginning to cool off and I felt at complete peace again. I felt like God had sent an angel to me today as a messenger of encouragement and peace in the form of my maintenance man. I do believe him. I a going to be okay. God promised that I will be. And more importantly, I believe Him.
"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28