My Fear & Faith Journey, Continued

The scholarship money ran out, but God already knew that was coming. A fellow student had a cleaning job at a church and asked me to sub for her whenever she had to be away. One day she handed the whole job over to me. Toward the end, I was working at the church bookstore and taking in sewing in addition to the cleaning job to pay for school. That's just as much God's provision as the checks falling from the sky. I think it was Beth Moore who talked about being a "wonders junky" --someone who wants to binge on miracles. Let God decide when He wants to show off. You and I need to be ready to accept whatever way He chooses to provide. Amen?

Life got hard sometimes. I can't recall every intricate detail, but we needed a second car. Hubby had a car to get to work, but it was too hard to share it.  People would donate cars to the seminary so I applied for one. I didn't get it because we lived in seminary housing and they reasoned that because I could walk to class, applicants living farther away had dibs. That's understandable, but I was discouraged all the same.

 I will never forget what God did next. 

He let things get worse. He let my husband's car break down. The repairs were expensive and we didn't have enough to get it out of the shop. I went into a depression. 

One Wednesday night I was working behind the bookstore counter. Two ministers I knew walked in.

"Heyyyy! How are you tonight," one of them said.

I mustered as much of a smile as I could and answered, "I'm ok."

One replied, "What would it take to make things better than ok?"

I don't tell my personal business to acquaintances, but my mouth took on a life of it's own and said, "Getting our car out of the shop."

He asked for more details and then huddled in a corner with the other minister.  When he came back, he said he would get me a check  for the rest of the amount we needed. 

But wait, God still was  not through!

Before the two-angels-in plain-clothes incident, another car came available at the seminary. I was gun shy from the last rejection and wasn't going to apply for another car. A friend said I should try again. I did, and BECAUSE OUR FAMILY HAD NO CAR, they awarded us the free car. THEN the angels came to the bookstore and God gave us our old car back! In other words, God let our only car break down so He could give us two cars. 

Ladies, sometimes when we feel God is picking on us, He's actually positioning us for a greater blessing than the one we lost. When Moses first started with that, "let my people go" stuff, things got worse. Pharaoh reasoned that those Israelites must have too much time on their hands and he required they find their own straw and still reach their original daily brick quota. (Exodus 5:6-9) The Israelites were angry with Moses because it appeared he was making things worse for them; however, God was just setting everyone up for His big appearance on the stage of ten plagues and then deliverance.
Fear takes every opportunity to say, "See, I told you!" She did it for me many times. I recall having many meetings with God to see if I really heard Him right.

I would have missed seven years of God's amazing provision had I allowed fear to keep me on the porch. 

I have one more story to share from those amazing years. Let's bring this thing in for a landing tomorrow!