God Always Provides



<>



I have a million experiences I could tell you but the one I would like tell you about today was when I prayed and God answered.  I didn’t call anyone else to help or to pray with me.  It was God and Julie.

In the late 70’s unemployment was much like it is today.  There were several differences, though.  First,  we didn’t have all of the expenses we do today.  We had one phone line in our home and we only made long distance calls if it was an emergency. There wasn’t an internet bill or a cable bill.  We wrote letters and sent them across country.  Imagine that! 

My husband and I owned our own business at that time.  Times were tough.  I worked only on Saturday and only for my husband so it meant I worked for free while he watched the girls on Saturday morning.  He was also in college at the time so most weeks he would go to work on Monday morning, then drive to college 45 miles away for evening classes, drive back to the business after class and work for the night and through the next day then come home and sleep for one night.  Wednesday it would begin again and he would sleep Thursday night.  Friday evenings were always reserved for playing cards with another couple that was also struggling.  That way each couple got some recreation without either of us having a baby sitter we needed to pay. 

When I say things were tough, I mean really tough.  My husband was working so hard and so many hours every week; he was exhausted.  It got to a point that one day I had to pray that God would supply the food we needed to have dinner that night.  We had plenty of venison in the freezer so meat wasn’t an issue.  No, we didn’t have store bought meat at that time, we really couldn’t afford it.  This particular morning I realized I didn’t have anything to put with the meat.  I had used everything else I had in the way of fruit, eggs, veggies, cereal, pasta, potatoes.  Everything was gone.  I had flour and sugar in the cupboard but nothing to put with it to make anything edible.  This is a frightening thing for a Mom with two little girls that needed to be fed.   Baking my own bread had become my way of releasing stress, and still is in troubled times, so I baked all of our own bread.  Unfortunately, I was out of yeast.

I was also embarrassed to tell anyone how desperate we were so I took all of the “talking to God” on my own shoulders.  When my husband left for work I began crying out to God.  All by myself I called out to God.  I had to say to Him that I didn’t know what we were going to do.  That I knew He “wouldn’t have his people begging for bread” but we didn’t have any bread so he would need to supply bread to us.  I needed to feed my children and I knew that He loved them even more than I did so he would need to supply the food for them.

About two hours later I received a call from the wife of our pastor, Babs.  She said that someone had called her that morning and said that God had told her in the summer months to home can twice the food she would normally can and when the time came, God would tell her where she was to take the food.  Today was the day.

That morning God told her to call Babs.  She told Babs that God hadn’t told her who the food was to go to, only that Babs would take care of it.  Babs told me that at first she didn’t know who the food was to be taken to but then the woman with the gift of food said there isn’t any meat.  She said she then knew it was for our family.  Babs said she was going to pick up the food and would bring it that afternoon.  The woman asked to remain anonymous. I was so amazed.  Amazed doesn’t even seem like a strong enough word! When Babs arrived she brought BOXES of home canned fruits and vegetables along with frozen vegetables that filled our freezer.  I was in awe as I put the jars on the shelves.  It was amazing as I stood back and looked there were many things I realized.  God had known 6 months before this day that I would be crying out to Him on this date and at this time.  He had planned ahead for me.  He didn’t provide Del Monte or Green Giant or the store brand, which would have been great.  He provided food that was home canned with love. 

Why is this story important to you?  It is important because we all have times when we are alone with our burden.  We don’t always need to be on a prayer list or share our burden with someone else.  God is there for each of us individually.  He wants YOU to call on Him.  He is ready to provide.

The pictures are the actual pictures I took that day to never allow me to forget what God did for a frightened young Mother.