This morning was one of juggling and coordination...and the reckoning of a particular procrastination.
A month ago we went on our family beach vacation and asked a niece to house sit for us. It had been quite some time since I had possessed a front door key to our house. It was always one of those things to do tomorrow - get a new key made. So I had given our niece my garage door key - the only house key I possessed. A month later, I still had not taken ten seconds to put that one key back on my key ring.
Oh wicked, wicked web that I weaved!
We had some friends from New York who stayed with us last night, but this morning I needed to leave the house before they were ready to leave. So, I explained how to lock everything up, and without a thought, I told them to make sure they locked the door entering the house from the garage. Yea. I did. With my one lonely house key setting on the counter right in front of me...I said my goodbyes to our guests and left the house.
Rushing home after dropping my granddaughter off at camp, I had about twenty minutes before needing to leave for a doctor's appointment. Driving on my neighborhood street, I was pleasantly surprised to see my youngest daughter's car heading in the opposite direction. She often used our neighborhood as a cut through to get to her job as a massage therapist. I waved and smiled, deciding to call and hear her sweet voice for a minute. As I drove up to my house and opened the garage door, it hit me with cold awareness. I was locked out.
Thankfully my daughter was only three minutes from my house and very willing to drive back and let me in with her house key.
In my second missionary memoir In Every Place, I tell of another time that God so beautifully answered our needs before we even knew to ask.
None of our needs are a surprise to God. None.
When we live deeply in that truth, our stress level just might decrease a few octaves.
(Chapter 11, In Every Place)
Before We Knew To Ask
A couple of weeks after returning from Abidjan with my health issues, we received word our car repairs were finished, so Jeff took a bus back to the big city to retrieve our car and pay the large repair bill. We had no idea how we were going to make it all work financially, especially since we had recently spent quite a bit of our monthly income on my medical procedures. While Jeff was gone, our financial donor statement from the previous month arrived, but I did not take time to open it. Three days later my tired and frazzled man drove up in front of the Grand Maison - honking the horn at the gate to announce his arrival. As I always tried to do, I breathed a prayer of thanksgiving for his safety on the long seven hour trip.
The car was in good shape, running well as it should have been after $1400.00 worth of repairs. Later that night, when we finally went to bed, our pillow talk was about our financial predicament. We concluded it with a prayer that God would provide as He saw fit. While I was in the schoolroom with the girls the next morning, the door swung open and I was met with the excited brown eyes of my husband. He waved a paper in front of my face and said, “Do you remember how much I told you the repairs for the car cost? Exactly how much? I gave him the number of fourteen hundred dollars, and he nodded animatedly as he thrust the donor statement for December in my hand. Halfway down the sheet was a name which I did not recognize and the donated amount to our ministry was $1400.00. It had been received at the mission office more than six weeks ago. Before we know what to ask. Above what we ask or think.
God is not kidding when He put truths and promises in His Word. We were exactly where we needed to be - in spite of the physical struggles, spiritual and emotional setbacks, and financial deficits. Though we had seen God provide for us time and time again, it was the exact amount provided by a donor - to this day - we have never heard from again. That’s just how God works.
He owns the cattle and the checkbooks of those whom we may never meet in this life.
