A Startling Surprise
It's time for Mama Kat's Writing Prompt and today the topic is, " Describe a time you felt startled."
At first I drew a blank. I've certainly been startled many times, but my goal with this blog is to write about pleasant, uplifting things and I wasn't going to retell any of the horrible startling moments that first came to mind. Trying to think of a good one while laying in bed, I prayed that the Lord bring one to mind, since He can easily locate mental files I've forgotten which cabinet I put them in, and He popped a really good one!
It happened about 20 years ago. My husband had been sent on an 18 month assignment to Turkey that year and my plan was to visit him for a few weeks over Christmas. The price for a round trip flight was $1200.00, which I knew I could put on our credit card, but the debt of it concerned me.
Our house was brand new then, we'd only moved in a few months before Dave got the assignment. So I wouldn't be alone while he was gone, we'd invited a young single girl, named Julie, whom we knew from the ministry to move in and stay with me.
It was a sunny fall day in September as Julie and I walked out to the mail box to get the mail. Now I don't know if you've ever read Guideposts magazines, but Julie and I both had, and they are full of stories of God's miraculous intervention, such as providing money of nowhere at providential moments. I had never had such a thing happen, but it's one of those things you always secretly wish might happen, and as we were walking, I remember just idly remarking to her about one such Guidepost story I remember reading where miracle money arrived in the mail.
Reaching the mail box, I pulled out the mail. In it I found a letter from my Uncle John. He's my Mother's brother, who has never married and, since he has no family of his own, he often visited over Christmas while I was growing up. Even so, we've never been close. We only trade Christmas cards and, at the time, I probably hadn't actually seen him in person since our wedding ten 10 years earlier. So seeing he'd written me a letter was quite odd. I opened it as we were walking back toward the house and something slipped out and fell on the drive way. It fell face up and I saw it was a personal check made out to me. I stared some more, unable to believe the number of zeros I was seeing on the amount. I might've not been surprised to see $200, but this was $2000! I couldn't believe it. I couldn't even breathe, I was so startled and astonished! I had no idea how my Uncle even knew to send it! What I did know was not only I would now be able to pay for my plane ticket, but I would also have extra spending money for the trip!
A Guidepost sort of money coming-out-of-nowhere-at-a-time-of-need had finally happened to me!
There was another such amazing moment of financial provision in the mail box in more recent years, but that is a tale for another time...
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At first I drew a blank. I've certainly been startled many times, but my goal with this blog is to write about pleasant, uplifting things and I wasn't going to retell any of the horrible startling moments that first came to mind. Trying to think of a good one while laying in bed, I prayed that the Lord bring one to mind, since He can easily locate mental files I've forgotten which cabinet I put them in, and He popped a really good one!
It happened about 20 years ago. My husband had been sent on an 18 month assignment to Turkey that year and my plan was to visit him for a few weeks over Christmas. The price for a round trip flight was $1200.00, which I knew I could put on our credit card, but the debt of it concerned me.
Our house was brand new then, we'd only moved in a few months before Dave got the assignment. So I wouldn't be alone while he was gone, we'd invited a young single girl, named Julie, whom we knew from the ministry to move in and stay with me.
It was a sunny fall day in September as Julie and I walked out to the mail box to get the mail. Now I don't know if you've ever read Guideposts magazines, but Julie and I both had, and they are full of stories of God's miraculous intervention, such as providing money of nowhere at providential moments. I had never had such a thing happen, but it's one of those things you always secretly wish might happen, and as we were walking, I remember just idly remarking to her about one such Guidepost story I remember reading where miracle money arrived in the mail.
Reaching the mail box, I pulled out the mail. In it I found a letter from my Uncle John. He's my Mother's brother, who has never married and, since he has no family of his own, he often visited over Christmas while I was growing up. Even so, we've never been close. We only trade Christmas cards and, at the time, I probably hadn't actually seen him in person since our wedding ten 10 years earlier. So seeing he'd written me a letter was quite odd. I opened it as we were walking back toward the house and something slipped out and fell on the drive way. It fell face up and I saw it was a personal check made out to me. I stared some more, unable to believe the number of zeros I was seeing on the amount. I might've not been surprised to see $200, but this was $2000! I couldn't believe it. I couldn't even breathe, I was so startled and astonished! I had no idea how my Uncle even knew to send it! What I did know was not only I would now be able to pay for my plane ticket, but I would also have extra spending money for the trip!
A Guidepost sort of money coming-out-of-nowhere-at-a-time-of-need had finally happened to me!
There was another such amazing moment of financial provision in the mail box in more recent years, but that is a tale for another time...
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Other things I've been up to:
* It's that time of year for trimming pampas grass. I give special care to the clumps near the property line. Did one this week. 3 more to go.
* Did a couple designs for my Zazzle Shop: The t-shirt is posted here to the right. It can be on any style or color shirt, men's or women's. Yesterday I created stationary with a Monarch butterfly design. It's from a real photo I took of one in a butterfly house actually at Epcot in 2009.
* I'm currently working on setting up a "BevStuff" website at Yola. (Yola offers free websites, up to 5.) This will make my 3rd site. They've improved their features since I built The Zone website, so easier to use. It's just drop and click. I designed my own banner for it and, for continuity, I put that same banner on my Zazzle store. It came out really nice. If you'd like to look, go here: http://www.zazzle.com/bevstuff
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