Due to my travel schedule and the fact that Carla Boelkens, the Director of the Global Bag Project, volunteers one day a week in the GBP office, neither one of us has had time to appropriately market the beautiful reusable shopping bags the Kenyan women make to earn a living for themselves and their children. Consequently, we have had few home parties in the last months, and home parties are our major venue for selling their products.
I’m clearing my schedule for the days ahead so that I can rectify this, but for the time being, the $225 rent for the storage room we use as a Global Bag Project office is overdue.
I had a meeting in Danville, Illinois this past Saturday. Danville is about three hours from West Chicago, where we live, so I looked forward to the drive downstate as a time I could spend concentrating on prayer, and I had several wonderful uninterrupted hours interceding for the people I love and thanking God for all the amazing gifts He pours into our lives. On the drive down, I decided that I would use the money from my book table sales to pay for the rent, which I thought was about $250.
The women’s meeting was a delight. I’m pretty sure that if I attended Second Church of Christ in Danville, Illinois, all the gals who planned this event would become close friends—believe me, that is a wonderful feeling to have about all the strangers one meets on the road if you are part of the speaker’s circuit.
When I opened the envelope that held my honorarium, I discovered that I had been paid almost $200 more than the fee I was offered—this was an unexpected and welcome generosity (since my personal checking account was down to $34.41). What a lovely God who cares for us in such immediate and practical ways!
Not only that, I discovered that I had sold $249 worth of books, only one dollar short of paying for the GBP rental fee. How does He do this? I wondered. With all His children all around the world, how does God give us what we need when we need it almost to the exact amount? Obviously, I could make up the dollar difference.
I had money enough to pay for the groceries I bought on the way home for the crowd that was coming for Sunday dinner (I’d taken $100 in small bills from my checking account to make change for the book table).
Coming in the front door, I called out to David, “I’m home!”
He replied, “Oh, I have a surprise for you.” It was a small—but nice—royalty check for a book I’d written. (All in all, an exceedingly profitable day.)
This morning, sitting at the desk, I realized (and had forgotten) that my Social Security check is electronically transmitted on Wednesday. Now I have money to pay for help with spring cleaning the yard (two teenagers of close friends are my yardmen), buy topsoil and compost for the garden boxes and the new cold frames, and plant the cool weather crops that hopefully some nearby nursery has started for me.
I’m a wealthy woman! And—the monthly GBP rent is $225, not $250—so I won’t even be out one dollar to make up the difference. Actually, I sometimes feel a little sad for people of great wealth. How can they possibly know the delight of living day to day and seeing God meet their needs, pay their bills in unexpected ways, or feel the rush of joy that comes from knowing that a Heavenly Father loves you so much? Do they even understand that He is able to provide for you down to the last penny?
“On this day the Lord has acted; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24
I spy God!
I’m clearing my schedule for the days ahead so that I can rectify this, but for the time being, the $225 rent for the storage room we use as a Global Bag Project office is overdue.
I had a meeting in Danville, Illinois this past Saturday. Danville is about three hours from West Chicago, where we live, so I looked forward to the drive downstate as a time I could spend concentrating on prayer, and I had several wonderful uninterrupted hours interceding for the people I love and thanking God for all the amazing gifts He pours into our lives. On the drive down, I decided that I would use the money from my book table sales to pay for the rent, which I thought was about $250.
The women’s meeting was a delight. I’m pretty sure that if I attended Second Church of Christ in Danville, Illinois, all the gals who planned this event would become close friends—believe me, that is a wonderful feeling to have about all the strangers one meets on the road if you are part of the speaker’s circuit.
When I opened the envelope that held my honorarium, I discovered that I had been paid almost $200 more than the fee I was offered—this was an unexpected and welcome generosity (since my personal checking account was down to $34.41). What a lovely God who cares for us in such immediate and practical ways!
Not only that, I discovered that I had sold $249 worth of books, only one dollar short of paying for the GBP rental fee. How does He do this? I wondered. With all His children all around the world, how does God give us what we need when we need it almost to the exact amount? Obviously, I could make up the dollar difference.
I had money enough to pay for the groceries I bought on the way home for the crowd that was coming for Sunday dinner (I’d taken $100 in small bills from my checking account to make change for the book table).
Coming in the front door, I called out to David, “I’m home!”
He replied, “Oh, I have a surprise for you.” It was a small—but nice—royalty check for a book I’d written. (All in all, an exceedingly profitable day.)
This morning, sitting at the desk, I realized (and had forgotten) that my Social Security check is electronically transmitted on Wednesday. Now I have money to pay for help with spring cleaning the yard (two teenagers of close friends are my yardmen), buy topsoil and compost for the garden boxes and the new cold frames, and plant the cool weather crops that hopefully some nearby nursery has started for me.
I’m a wealthy woman! And—the monthly GBP rent is $225, not $250—so I won’t even be out one dollar to make up the difference. Actually, I sometimes feel a little sad for people of great wealth. How can they possibly know the delight of living day to day and seeing God meet their needs, pay their bills in unexpected ways, or feel the rush of joy that comes from knowing that a Heavenly Father loves you so much? Do they even understand that He is able to provide for you down to the last penny?
“On this day the Lord has acted; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24
I spy God!
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