Surprise Blessings and Provisions

It's amazing how easy it is for me to get caught up in my own little world and not notice all the blessings God has put in my life.  I'll admit that I don't count them or even notice them as often as I should.  This week God has made it impossible for His provision to go unnoticed.  I mentioned earlier that we attended a baby shower where my husband won gift cards for Starbucks.  What I didn't mention was that I go to Starbucks once a week to meet with a wonderful friend and mentor.  It is such a refreshing and life giving time for me and I treasure it.  The fact that I get to have a special drink each week is just an added bonus.  Anyway, my Starbucks card was next to empty and so I was thinking that I would just need to forgo the special drinks for a while.  God had a different idea, His daughter was low on Starbucks bucks, so He gave her more.  Blessing number one.

We are part of an AMAZING church.  The church mission statement is "Love people to life."  That is exactly what happens there, I know from personal experience.  We have been thoroughly blessed by the people in our small group, the volunteers who watch our kids, all of the pastors and the church body in general.  One family in particular sticks out.  They volunteer all the time in the nursery and as if that isn't enough, they watch our kids while we go to our small group, for free!  Blessing number... Okay, there were like five or six in there, no wonder I don't stop to count my blessings, I'd never get anything else done!   I'll just list a few more.

This month we found ourselves looking at a costly bill for some special bracing shoes that our daughter needs.  We didn't know where the money was going to come from to pay it, so we prayed.  We didn't ask any person, we just asked God.  On Wed. my mother came to me and said that they were going to pay for Grace's shoes.  Just like that, she just informed me of the fact like it was no big deal.  It is a big deal to me!

Today I got to spend time doing crafts and chatting with a friend.  Whenever I get to spend time with a friend, that is a blessing.  We actually got to have an adult conversation and it didn't center around the potty, cleaning a room, how many more bites someone would have to take, or even pirates.  No one even whined (except for the occasional kid that ran into the room to check out what the moms were doing),  just good 'ol girl talk!  Blessing.

My baby started starting to walk this past week.  She is 17 mos. old and even though that may seem late to most it's about average with our kids.  The spectacular part of that is that this particular daughter was born with a club foot.  Through lots of prayer, casts, braces and a surgery, her foot looks beautiful now.  Most people would have a hard time guessing which was the affected foot.  God obviously has His hand on our baby girl's foot.  Blessing!

I know that I am forgetting so many more amazing things that happened this week, but it is getting late.  I will list just one last one.  This one is the one that got me thinking about this in the first place.  Do you ever have those days when you just don't know what's for dinner?  That was today, okay, it happens quite often here but it's okay because I'm pretty good at whipping things up really quick.  Today I didn't have to whip anything up.  I got a call from a woman that we attend church with.  I barely know her.  I know her daughter.  She called to let me know that she had made dinner for my family and would it be okay if she brought it by?  "Hmm, let me see, you want to bring food to my family, is that okay????   YES!!!!  It is ALWAYS okay to bring us food!"   I couldn't believe it.  I did nothing to deserve this for sure.  But what's even more amazing is that I haven't just had a baby, no one in our family is sick (aside from allergies) and I wasn't overwhelmingly busy.  Like I said, I even had time to sit down with a friend and chat.  The kind of thoughtfulness and generosity that she showed us today could only be from God.  She doesn't even live close by.  She had to drive a long way to deliver the meal and she didn't have time to stay and chat.  It was an unprecedented blessing as far as I'm concerned and it really made me want to not only be more aware of the everyday provisions and gifts that God puts in my life, but also to be available to Him so that He could use me to provide some of those wonderful surprise gifts to the people He puts in my life.  I should also mention that the food was delicious!  My three year old daughter Hope had seconds and exclaimed in the middle of dinner, "Thank you for this dinner, this is the best food I've ever had!"  When I heard that I knew for sure that it HAD to be a gift from God, when else does a three year old have such a great review about food that the adults actually enjoy too?

Anyway, I've been blessed and I hope you are too.