The Washington Times carried a story many years ago about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. According to this newspaper article, Dr. Rice once described to a Sunday school class at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, how she had drifted from her Christian faith and how God reached out and brought her back:

"I was a preacher's kid," says Dr. Rice, "so Sundays were church, no doubt about that. The church was the center of our lives. In segregated black Birmingham of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the church was not just a place of worship. It was the place where families gathered; it was the social center of the community, too.

"Although I never doubted the existence of God," Dr. Rice continues, "I think like all people I've had some ups and downs in my faith. When I first moved to California in 1981 to join the faculty at Stanford, there were a lot of years when I was not attending church regularly. I was traveling a lot. I was a specialist in international politics, so I was always traveling abroad. I was always in another time zone. One Sunday I was in the Lucky's Supermarket not very far from my house I will never forget among the spices and an African-American man walked up to me and said he was buying some things for his church picnic. And he said, 'Do you play the piano by any chance?'

"I said, 'Yes.' They said they were looking for someone to play the piano at church. It was a little African-American church right in the center of Palo Alto. A Baptist church. So I started playing for that church. That got me regularly back into churchgoing. I don't play gospel very well I play Brahms and you know how black ministers will start a song and the musicians will pick it up? I had no idea what I was doing and so I called my mother, who had played for Baptist churches.

"'Mother,' I said, 'they just start. How am I supposed to do this?' She said, 'Honey, play in C and they'll come back to you.' And that's true," says Dr. Rice, "If you play in C, people will come back. I tell that story," she goes on, "because I thought to myself, 'My goodness, God has a long reach.' I mean, in the Lucky's Supermarket on a Sunday morning."

You see, a black pastor had approached someone else in Jesus' name and Christ was there in Lucky's Supermarket.

We are not alone. This is where we find strength for the journey. Our Lord has given us an incredible promise: "Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." He's been here today. Now take him to everyone you meet.