During my freshman year in college, one of my teachers made a note in the margin of an essay I had written that said, “You write well.” I don’t think he could have imagined how those three words would carry me along a particular path, one that I would return to time and time again. He recognized something in me and first put words to a desire and call that I was aware of vaguely at best.

We never know when the moment of grace might occur, what form it will take, or who will help usher it into our lives. It may be someone we have known for a very long time, a teacher we have known only since the beginning of the semester, or someone we have never set eyes on before today. This is how Philip encounters the Ethiopian eunuch.

On his way to Gaza, Philip meets the eunuch, who is reading Isaiah. Philip asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” to which the eunuch responds, “How can I . . . unless someone explains to me?” (NIV). The story continues, “So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.” I wonder whether the eunuch had any idea how much this seemingly minor and ordinary encounter would change his life, that he would never be the same, that he would go “on his way rejoicing” (v. 39).

For me, grace has often taken the form of unexpected encounters, small and seemingly insignificant twists and turns that have ultimately had a great influence on my life’s direction. Whatever shape it takes—whether an encounter on the road to Gaza or a note in the margin of an essay—a moment of grace leaves us in an entirely different condition than it found us.