Well, He works in mysterious ways. In completely humbling ways. God works in ways that completely catch us all off guard and leave us asking ourselves why we doubted that He would provide for us in the first place. I had once such moment today...actually 2, but since they were within the same 15 minute interval and the fact that I don't know how you measure a "moment" ( I mean, how long is a "moment?"), anyway I will count them as one huge God moment.
I have been extremely stressed all day. The holiday has completely messed me up. Not to say that I didn't enjoy my Monday off work, but it has put me behind. Instead of my usual short week of Monday through Thursday, I have been trying to cram about 2 weeks' worth of work into 3 short days. I've had newsletter and bulletins to work on and proof, announcements to send, a 3-month calendar for children and adult events to organize, plans for our last Sunday school class this weekend, the huge load of VBS, finding volunteers, and tons of other stuff that have bogged me down and resulted in me carrying an arm full of papers and folders home last night to work on. Needless to say, I really didn't need anything else on my plate. Well, I walk in this morning, and I am told by the administrative assistant that our church's VBS budget is actually about half of what I was told it was by my committee members. Woohoo! I really like how this came after the fact that I have already bought all the VBS supplies under the notion that our budget was adequate. This sent me into a downward spiral. Now I need to not only cut my budget but have church members volunteer to buy food items for our VBS snacks to save our budget as well as volunteer their time at VBS. So, I have spent part of my day making a huge (and bright-colored) bulletin board with volunteer sign-up sheets to grab everyone's attention as they pass through the fellowship hall. I have sent out an email begging for volunteers and food donations, and I have typed up an insert for the worship bulletin with the same plea. Also, I have worked on planning a beach trip with the kids, sorted out room assignments for VBS, bought gifts for Sunday School teachers, worked on my children's sermon, planned a meeting with my committee to approve my summer events, and done insane amounts of math to decide how many boxes of crackers and other snack ingredients I will need for the 80 kids we are planning VBS for. Whew!
Bet you're wondering where the God moment comes in. Well, I was sitting right here at my desk, writing a quick email to my sister-in-law Katie, and someone knocked on my office door. It was a college student that goes to our church, and he wanted to talk to me about the youth program. He is back in town for the summer, and we talked about the plans I had for the kids these next couple of months. The whole time we chit-chatted, I kept wondering why he was here. He then blew me away with his reason for stopping by...he had a year's worth of tithe money that he wanted to put into the youth ministry. Holy Moly! An amount that is triple what our VBS budget was (or at least what I was told first). My first reaction was "WOW!" My second reaction was, "How the heck did a college student get that kind of cash?" And my third reaction was "This is totally a God thing!"
We talked a bit more, he offered to come and help out with some of the events this summer, and then he went to the office to give the administrative assistant his check. I sat here at my desk, closed my inbox, and thanked God for such an uplifting and truly generous act. I then walked up to the office to see if this had actually happened. After this miracle was confirmed, I walked back to my office and received a phone call. A lady at our church called to volunteer to help register kids for VBS and greet them as well as to donate 3 of the snack ingredients we needed. Then I opened my inbox to find 2 emails from adults wanting to volunteer and donate whatever ingredients I didn't receive by the day before VBS. I was overwhelmed...and for the first time that day, I wasn't overwhelmed by stress and a mile long to-do list, I was overwhelmed by God's gracious nature, His faithful love, and His mysterious ways.
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