God provides

I have heard a lot this week about God providing for our needs. Different friends on facebook have posted Bible verses and thoughts on this topic throughout the week. I have pondered. I know God meets all our needs. I find it interesting how sometimes we have the "meeting" all planned out, we think we've figured out how He's gonna move. But He always suprises us, doesn't He? He comes through with more and BETTER than we could have ever have figured out for ourselves.

I do love suprises. A friend or family member from out of town showing up unexpectedly on your doorstep for a visit. What a wonderful thing! Or perhaps walking into the library and finding a book on the shelf the library system said wasn't there. Little or big suprises, I love them all.

However, other suprises fall into the "bad" catagory. These have been very common among my friends concerning job loss over the past two years. Or job hours reduced to the point of the family not being able to survive economically. That happened to us a month ago. Ron's boss called a meeting and everyone's hours were cut. Substancially cut.

I must admit, I freaked at first. Went into scramble, "I must conquer this situation", mode. (If you haven't ever heard my Moab story, ask me to share it with you sometime. It is shamefully my worst example of this attitude...and pretty interesting too.)

Ron and I talked. We came up with a plan. My sweet husband began putting in job applications for part-time positions, as he would only be working at his full time job 5 hours a day. He is such a good provider for our family, he has always been since day one of our marriage.

I felt very helpless. Without a skill set that pays, and the complication that year round school brings for working parents, I didn't have a lot of options of employment open for me. I could go back to working at night- many women I know do this. I want to contribute financially to our family, I do not want to leave that burden to my husband completely in this crazy economic environment. But I really did not want to leave my family every single night- I've been there and it was not very healthy for us as a family.

We didn't need to worry long. God provided. Ron's hours went back to almost full-time within two weeks. The company got some new jobs in and did some restructuring which allowed them to give hours back to the employees.

But I still wanted to contribute financially in some way. It would be helpful to our family, especially with birthdays and the holidays coming up.

In steps God with a very good suprise.

An opportunity came up for me to watch a middle schooler after school. It pays exactly what I was hoping to make, and means I can include a child in our home each afternoon, which means a lot to me.

A very wonderful suprise from God. Done only in the way He can, exactly on time, and absolutely perfect for our needs.

God provides. And I believe He suprises us in the doing so. He gives good things, always.

God restores too. But that is a topic for another day. :)