The following story of God's provision in my life comes to mind from reading in 1 Kings 17 about how the Prophet Elijah finds a widow who is gathering sticks for kindling to bake bread from the remains of her flour. He proceeds to ask her to cook him up some bread from her rationed stash of flour she has left at home. And she does! She shares out of her poverty and her life is blessed by God. It seems that God's provision was multiplied by her willingness to share.
There was a short time in my life when I did experience poverty. This is my story of God's provision in that time. I was raised to give ten percent of my earnings to my church, off the top. This started as a small child with my allowance. So, in 1985, at the age of 26, I came to a time in my life where I didn’t have enough and continued this practice anyway, knowing it was God who took care of me and my girls and not my first-year teacher’s salary. It was not easy. I searched the couch cushions on more than one occasion, hoping to find enough change for a gallon of milk. And once, unbeknownst to me, one of my monthly paychecks got lost on the way to be deposited. This caused my checks for everything from rent to utilities to bounce accumulating extra fees! There were trials for sure. God did not dump cash from the sky. However, he did provide what I needed, when I needed it, teaching me some very important life lessons on the way.
One of the lessons he showed me was the beauty of His provision through the generosity of the people around me. In the tiny West Texas town of Olton, in which I worked as a high school biology teacher, people became aware of my need. It began with a sweet couple from my nearby college town who helped me moved into my new home with my 6-year-old daughter and new baby girl on a cold, rainy winter day. My new rental house was my first peek at God's provision at a bargain of $350 a month, and was so new, it smelled like fresh cut wood.
Over time, people seemed to come out of the woodwork to help me. My landlord rescued me when my heater pilot light went out and in the summer, a church member let me borrow a mower. My church saw my need and asked if they could help by paying my monthly school loan bill. The secretary at the school where I worked put $40 in my Christmas card. Friends often invited me and my girls over to dinner. My students threw a surprise birthday party for me. The elementary school counselor counseled and loved my 6-year-old who missed her daddy. And being selected to be the flower girl at homecoming, she started to realize that life goes on without her daddy. The head of department where I worked kept me laughing with his dry sense of humor and in those stressful times when my girls got sick, he let me keep my daughter on his office couch while I taught.
Not one of those acts of kindness was solicited. There was no reason to publish my need in social media posts or a GoFundMe page. Many of these necessities were met before I realized the need. The people of Olton were listening to God and being obedient. Generosity required that those people paid attention to God and to other's needs around them. They were unselfish, big-hearted, watchful and helpful, acting as God’s hands and feet. Generosity took on many forms and the smallest act of kindness was significant in my life. Thankfully, this season of my life was short, but I will never forget their generosity and what God taught me.
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