A Provision Story.

God cares about THIS??!?!?!?

My friend Kate Connel has the best story of God's provision I'd ever heard.  She'd always lived with roomates, and once found herself not only without a roomate, but without several key things that roomates usually provided--like an apple peeler/corer. There were actually about a dozen things that she needed, but this one cooking utensil is what she'd missed.

 You may not think that an apple peeler/corer is essential to life, but you would if you'd tasted Kate's apple dumplings.

 At first, she thought, "Well, I'll just go get a Target credit card, and get the things I need."  God stopped her in her tracks, and said to her heart, "You could ask me.  I love you more than Target does."

So, for the first time in her life, she prayed about a huge list of specific things that she needed for her kitchen and household, and put the list on her fridge. 

God started moving.  Without knowing anything about her prayer, friends would start calling her, "Hey, Kate, I don't need this blender anymore, would you like it?  Hey Kate, do you need a food processor?  I have a ton of extra coffee cups, come over and take a whole box!"  Stuff started showing up, getting "thrown out," randomly gifted to her, and God was showing her in a practical way that He loved her more than Target ever could. 

But something was still missing.

A couple of weeks after she'd started this prayer journey, we were having dinner with a friend and her parents, and Kate started telling us about all this stuff God had just given her in response to prayer.  The friend's mother asked, "What else do you need?"  Well, an apple peeler/corer is the last thing on my list."

The mother went into her closet, and pulled out the monstrous contraption pictured above.  Not only a peeler/corer, but a peeler/corer/slicer, which was actually better than Kate had even wanted, and said, "We never use it.  You can have it." 

I got to watch her happy explosion into laughter and tears, as she knew that God cared about all the little things in her life.  The LITTLE things!  She later said, "If God cares this much about my desserts, how much do you think he cares about my heart?" 

I got another little taste of this over the past couple of weeks. 

I tend to forget that God has miraculously provided amazing things exactly when I need them (like, oh, a CAR!) and start working on my own strength when I need something.  I'd recently made a list of all the things I needed for crafting, and boy, it was expensive.  A die-cutting machine.  A bunch of dies. Sewing machine parts.  A binding machine.  Better storage.  A ton of better-quality paper for making journals.  Wow....when I added all those things up together, it came to well over $1000.

Now, I'd recently noticed a sad trend in my own heart---I tend to be a better consumer than I am a producer.  I can spend all my money on craft supplies, and let them sit for months before I use them.  I didn't know how I could justify sinking any more money into this.  Plus, we're putting every spare cent into paying off a big fat credit card and huge student loans.  I didn't know how I could justify a THOUSAND dollars our of our family budget for crafting.  I mean, what does God care about crafting?

(Are you chuckling?  I hope you're chuckling.)

I had put a link at the top of my browser for Kickstarter, because I'd heard that it's a good source for funding any type of creative enterprise.  I thought, "Maybe I could get some start-up cash from there!" 

Then God reminded me of the apple peeler/corer/slicer , and how Kate never asked for the "slicer" part.  He reminded me that He loved me, and that I hadn't even asked Him for what I needed.  I COULD ask Him.  I could even ask Him to bless the work of my hands.  He loves me.  It's okay.

The first thing that happened is a mother-load of high-quality paper started showing up in thrift stores.  Yeah, I bought all of it for under ten bucks.  It came out of my blow money. 

Then, my sweet husband found a paper-sorter which normally retails for about $340.  For ten bucks at OSU surplus.  He bought it for me out of his blow money, which got him love-points and kisses that his blow money couldn't get him.  Hahahahah. :)

Yes, my studio was really this messy.  I hope you're inspired, Geetha!

Die cutter machines, which retail for about a hundred dollars, started showing up all over Craigslist for $15.  Apparently a newer model had come out, so people were getting rid of their old ones.  And the old dies, which were normally $20 bucks apiece, started going for under $5.  This was a HUGE blessing, because using the little scrapbooking punches over and over and over again had hurt my hands so badly that the pain actually kept me up one night. 

Again, blow-money-funded, no burden on my family's budget, throwing money at the debt snowball, and doing a Happy Snoopy Dance. 

It turned out the sewing machine part was only $15 bucks retail.  What was I worried about?

The thing I kept worrying about was the binding machine.  It took so long to bind a journal by hand, and the paper waste was really bothering me.  I put more paper in scrap piles on the floor than I put into the journal.  If I could just punch and bind that sucker, it would be faster and cheaper---but I couldn't seem to find people just tossing out their several-hundred-dollar binding machines. 

Until last week. :)

I really thought this was my "peeler/corer/slicer"  moment.  It was staged almost exactly like Kate's was. I told my friend (who's also my daughter's babysitter), "I'm looking for this weird thing."  My friend says, "Seriously? We have one collecting dust.  We've never used it.  You can have it."  I jumped around, cried, laughed, hugged my friend, hugged the pastor's wife, and just couldn't believe it.

And God still had more plans for me!

I never even prayed for this.   I asked God for "help with storage and sorting all my junk," but never, ever EVER dreamed that He would give me something like this.  It's a five-unit cabinet set, with dozens of drawers, and made entirely of poplar wood.  I paid $370 to buy it and have it delivered from Columbus.  The seller had gotten it for free (he's in construction) and had to get rid of it when he moved. 

I couldn't have bought the drawer pulls alone for $370, not to mention all the careful workmanship that went into these.  I never dreamed that something like this existed, but God knew, and God had a plan. THIS was my slicer moment.  I cried a lot. 

If God cares this much about my crafts, how much do you think He cares about my kids?  Or my marriage? Or my dreams?  Or about my friends? Or about all those things I've been praying about? 

Do you ask God for what you need?  Or do you just go get a Mastercard and hope for the best?  Do you ask God for what you need, or do you think if you just work a little harder it will all work out?  I've had a spiritual awakening, and I found out that God is smarter than me.  God is more creative than me.  God is more frugal than me.  And God loves me.  He really does know best.  Ask, and it will be given to you.