Tell of His Mighty Deeds

Scripture instructs us to praise the LORD. 
In good times.
In tough times.

And right now, I just have to praise Him for His continued provision! 
He is ever good and ever faithful. 
ALL HIS WORK IS DONE IN FAITHFULNESS.

In the last 4 days we have had some big prayers answered, and some small ones too.  And by small, I mean things that are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  Things that don't really matter.

First I want to back up to last week.  God has provided a way for Kenneth and I to take the older two boys to Disney, but we are not having to pay for the tickets.  This was a very generous donation, and straight from the Lord because there is no way we could ever take our kids there.  This trip is a surprise for Noah and Aiden and we leave next week!  In preparation, I thought it would be fun to get shirts with mouse ears.  A few weeks back a friend of ours had a Mickey theme party for her daughter and her sister had made the exact shirts that I was picturing in my mind!  I asked if her sister could make us some shirts and I would pay her.  She agreed even though she said she doesn't feel confident enough to actually make them for other people.  When we got the shirts back, which are great, I asked her how much I owed.  She said something to the effect of, "Growing up my dad was a pastor.  So often God provided for our family through people leaving bags of vegetables on our door.  Please consider this my bag of vegetables."  I cannot tell you how much that blessed me.  The blessing for me was the testimony of God's faithfulness to this family and His continued provision for them.  How encouraging for me!

On Saturday our family was at my brother's college football game.  We knew this would be the last game we would ever see him play.  As the minutes wound down Kenneth said, "God, I would selfishly love to see him score a touchdown."  Just then guess who scores a touchdown?  My brother.  See, this is sorta silly.  But isn't it just fun when God grants our silliest, non-eternal, requests when we know that that is what they are?  It is as if God is just saying, "Hey, I love you.  And I can give you that little blessing just because." 

This weekend I also discovered that Noah has no clothes for this fall.  He had a couple of pairs of jeans, but no shirts.  My mom bought him some items, and I had a gift card that I was able to use to get a few things.  That was a blessing in and of itself.  We really do not have the budget to just go buy a bunch of clothes right now, so I was very thankful.  But then yesterday Kenneth came home carrying a bag of clothes that someone from church had dropped off for us.  When I opened it up there were several pairs of pants--in Noah's size!

I hesitate in a way to detail this last part.  Simply because I don't want to give off a wrong impression.  However, I do feel like I want to be as faithful as I can to proclaim the deeds of the Lord.  Hopefully it will encourage someone else going through a similar struggle.  Please know my heart that I say the following to praise God for His care.

Last night I was going over our budget.  We have some needs in a few areas.  This morning I talked with Kenneth about it and we prayed.  We thanked God for the ways He has always provided for us in the past, we praised Him that He will meet our needs and we asked that the Lord would show us what we need to do.  During my Bible study today I read the following commentary on Matthew 6:33, "We must put God first in our lives, and He will see to it that we always have all that we need."  How comforting to me after the last few days and after bringing our needs before Him this morning.  The crazy thing (not crazy with God) is that I am studying James 5 right now.  Not Matthew 6.  Just so happened that there was a cross reference and the commentary gave that insight.  So less than 30 minutes after I finished my Bible study I received a call from Kenneth.  He told me that he had just received a check out-of-nowhere that covers half of what we need!  In 7 hours God had already provided! 

My heart just delights in Him! 

I will admit that it is very humbling for me to experience His provision this way.  One of my greatest areas of struggle is worry over finances.  I also do not like to be dependent upon anyone for anything.  In my pride I don't want to put anyone out or take anything.  God is always humbling me by using others to meet our needs.  From loaning us a crib, to meals, to gift cards, to giving us hand-me-down clothes, diapers, baby supplies, groceries, cleaning supplies, free babysitting, a car, an I-pod for listening to sermons, money for the adoption....the list could go on and on and on.  I cannot express how humbling that is, and how ever grateful and mindful I am of all the ways so many people have blessed us.

To me, this is a beautiful picture of the Bride of Christ.  And a beautiful picture of God taking care of His beloved children.