April 3rd ... I started thanking Jesus for the small ways He's helped us lately.
Thank you Jesus for sending Mrs. Lena by my apartment this morning who gave me a free ride to school.
Thank you for the microwave.
Thank you Jesus for having Jonny ask if I needed a ride after school. Another free ride.
Thank you Jesus for the $88 flight refund. And so on...
{Several days ago I made a silly post about not having a microwave and it being #firstworldproblems and how #idontliveinafirstworld. It was online for no longer than 5 minutes when I got a message from an old college professor of mine wanting to buy me a microwave. "Before you agree to this you should know that the cheapest one I've been able to find here is $50 and that's for a used one," I told him. He said he has too many luxuries not to buy me a microwave and that he was sending me $200. "Buy yourself a new one. Not used, new. And use the rest for popcorn."}
{When I flew home in January for Poppy's funeral, my flight from Houston to MS was canceled for days and a friend of the family had to drive me half way to Ellisville to meet my sister who came to get me. Soon after, I applied for a refund for that leg of the trip that I missed. It took them a hot minute but I got that refund on April 3rd. Why did it take so long? Who knows ... but the timing of the Sovereign One is pretty impressive.}
- Also on that day, I received a message from a family in Natchez wanting to financially support our mission trip.
- A couple days later I received a message from a lady. She's the aunt of one of my World Race squad mates and said she loved following my blogs during the race. She wanted to support us and sent a check the next day.
- After a conversation with her, she informed me that she was sending another check (apart from the mission trip donation) to help with our needs here in CR.
- A friend of my parents who followed my race wrote me saying that when I was on the race she could not support me financially but now she has a little extra and she wants to help so she sent us a check.
- The next day, a very sweet lady from my church back home sent me message asking how to send me a donation for our mission trip.
- On April 7, I got an email from my Internet company saying I would receive a 25% discount on this month's bill due to an outage last month. It saved me $20.
- That same day, I got a message from an old friend who I have not talked to in years. He and his wife wanted to donate to our mission trip but I told him we actually had JUST met our financial goal and thanked him for wanting to help. He then told me that they wanted to help anyway and asked how they could donate.
- Alonso used to work in sales for his dad's company. A commission from one of his sales came in late and his dad gave it to him yesterday. The sale was MONTHS ago but we are just not getting it because ... God's time is brilliant.
Now remember that I'm not sold on the idea that IF, I do (__fill in the blank__) THEN, God will provide. So I'm not trying to tell you that my thanking Jesus made anything happen. I am, however, saying that something happens in your spirit when we make the choice to praise Him for the small, daily things that are easily overlooked.
I think we get it backwards sometimes. It's not that we have much faith, therefore God provides. It's quite the opposite.
God provides, therefore we have much faith.
Every time He blows my mind, my faith grows more and more. He is the author of my faith. He is the perfecter of my faith. I need not be concerned with what I can do or give to make myself worthy of His provision. I need simply to just be.
Be with Him.
Be his daughter.
Be with all His is, and share that with the rest of the world.
To read this blog series from the beginning, click here.
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