We are beginning to live a life accustomed to God meeting our every need. We have yet to go hungry or naked. God provides in the coolest ways. This most recent way really took the cake, though.
About a month ago, we attended an event for seminary families called Operation Toy Chest. It is hosted by a local church who donates toys, bikes, gift cards, you name it...in order to bless seminary students (who are typically not the wealthiest people on the planet for this season of life!) If a donated item is valued in a store at $20, the seminary family only has to pay $2 for the toy. All the money earned that day goes to the missions offering (Lottie Moon Christmas Offering) from that church. We were blessed with some really cool things for our kids for just a few dollars!
At the end of the "shopping period", they have a big raffle drawing. They give you some tickets when you arrive and you place your tickets into a prize that you might want to win. These are bigger prizes such as electric scooters, MacBooks, iPads, American Girl dolls, etc. We had put our tickets into the items we would like to win for our kids. As we were putting a ticket into the MacBook Pro box, we looked at each other and said, "Wouldn't it be the coolest thing to win this for the kids?"
My son has rising ambitions to be a YouTuber. My daughter could use a Mac to do some amazing Photoshop things with pictures...she's very talented. My kids have talked for about a year about how cool it would be to have their own Mac. Well, for $1400...that would be a no-go on us buying them one.
So we placed our ticket into the drawing as a pipe dream, really. There were hundreds of seminary families in attendance. There were only 50 prizes to be won. Our odds weren't great. We would be happy with the other toys we got, and we would be happy for our fellow seminary friends who won big prizes. I sat in the crowd as prizes were being called that were NOT our number. Doubt started to creep in and I wanted to guard my heart from disappointment, so I started telling myself that we weren't going to win. "Don't get your hopes up...you'll only be disappointed." But then I was also praying and asking God to find favor on my family with a blessing for my children.
The emcee held up the MacBook Pro and started telling all the great things about it. I couldn't stand it anymore! Just call the number already so I can leave if we didn't win. Then a miracle happened...he called our number. I'll never forget the feeling of the Spirit that washed over me in the moment. Tears poured. Michael couldn't even stand up to get the prize and stumbled to the front to claim our blessing. We cried all the way out the door. Then we just sat in our car in complete silence. When you are in God's presence, there is really nothing you need to say.
God not only meets my children's NEEDS...He also cares about the desires of their heart. God knows my children better than I do. He knew how much they would love this amazing gift. Psalm 37:23...The life verse of the Corsar Fam 4 had come to pass yet again, "God directs the steps of the godly, He cares about every detail of their lives." Every detail.
Want to see what shock, excitement, and extreme joy look like?
"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He WILL give you the desires of your heart." Do we follow God and live for Him so that we can get material blessings? No. But God is a good Father and He knows the desires in our hearts. He put those desires there, so that He can "wow" us with his glory.
We are officially WOW'ed!!
SO awesome! In every sense of the word!
ReplyDeleteSimply amazing!
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