(cf. EX. 17 and NUM. 20)
The last 4 months have felt like a bit of a wilderness journey. Mainly because as I continue to explore what doors might open this year for cross-cultural service (particularly among French-speaking Europeans), I have been working a fair bit as a childcare professional in order to make basic ends meet.
My living-between-paychecks existence this year so far has been a humbling experience (though I would shrink from thinking I am actually humble, and oh how my ballet teacher Miss Olivia would laugh if she heard me call myself humble!). However, it has taught me to keep praying in light of Biblical texts such as PHILIPPIANS 4:19 and 1 PETER 5:7, and to be asking friends, both in person and here on f’book, to be praying with me.
(If you are reading this and were praying, thank you for your faithfulness and for walking with me through this.)
Just in the past 2 weeks I have seen some amazingly merciful answers to prayers recently prayed. So here are a couple of little stories that I want to share with anyone who will read. Water-from-the-rock vignettes, to encourage you to keep seeking God also...though I know for certain that the path God is leading you down probably looks very different to mine.
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2 birds, 22.5 hours work unpaid, but 6 too many offers!
A fortnight ago a friend had to move in with me very suddenly.
We'd met & made friends at church about 6 years back, when she was a new believer. Life choices took her away from church about 4 years ago, and around 2 years ago the *trouble* started.
In what ended up being my final winter at College, she contacted me out of the blue to seek refuge from a manipulative male friend-with-benefits. (I say "friend", using the term *very* loosely indeed.) She stayed with me - and away from him - less than a week, but then, instead of taking up a new job offer and accommodation far from the *trouble*, she returned into the problematic situation. Which, predictably, worsened. Into not 2, but 3 kinds of abuse - perpetrated by the "friend-with-benefits".
And so, this year (10 months after), she got in touch again. And of course I wanted her to be safe and separate from the *trouble*, so of course she moved in with me, knowing of nowhere else to go. Financially though, our combined circumstances were poor. She had minimal savings because of up to 10 months' financial abuse. Meanwhile, I'd received from my casual employer only 20 hours' pay of the total 42.5 hours I'd actually worked in preschools/daycare over 14 days - then used this meagre underpayment up for basic bills/utilities. With the little I had left, I had no idea about how the 2 of us would survive as I barely had enough spare to buy food for 1 person (let alone 2).
So, as a daughter of the Heavenly Father and a servant of the King, I asked Him for help according to promises like PHIL. 4:19^. This is something I've had to do a lot between 2015 and now when I felt I had little or nothing left - and that was quite often! I also asked a lot of friends via social media outlets & groups to pray that God would provide our needs. (Because when I likened the 2 of us to "chickens scratching in the dirt", I wasn't kidding.)
God, being the kind and merciful Father that He is, and the King to whom the earth and everything in it belongs, answered through moving His church to action.
Within 48 hours of asking friends to pray with me (mainly via text messages and f'book), I had 7 of my sisters & brothers in the Lord reach out with offers of financial support.
Yes, not 1, but 7.
Bear in mind, I hadn't asked anybody for such support - I had simply asked for them to join in praying (not giving).
But suddenly, in the blink of an eye, there we were - myself and my chook friend (*wink*) with 7 people showing great love and care for us. Even though none of them knew my friend. {PHILOXENIA!^^} And we only needed 1 person to give us practical help out of the 7 who offered!
Disclaimer: I am only human, and still subject to the bondage of sin and its desires (including the desire not to trust God completely), so it wasn't as if I felt fully confident when asking for God to supply our needs.
That said, I was blown away by God's answer in the form of 6 more offers of help than the 2 of us actually needed.
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1 electronic device, 2 older brothers, 0 unhelpful conflicts
One way I agreed to help my friend *not* to go back to her abuser a 2nd time, was to return an electronic device he claimed as his property. As far as she told me (initially), this device handover would involve going to where she, the abuser/friend-with-benefits and some others had been living in a share-house situation. By implication there was every chance that the abuser would confront whoever arrived to hand over the device, and possibly become dangerous or threatening.
This was not something I was afraid of for my sake - but anyone who has known me more than 4 years will know that my berserker moments (read: when I *really* get angry) are legendary and to be avoided at all costs. (I try to avoid my fits of rage myself, in fact - but with limited success!)
But I digress. So that any trouble or conflict would be minimised on the day of device handover - I prayed for God to make available some of my Christian brothers who could go along with me that day and help defuse whatever trouble might arise.
{Or who could calmly hold me back and reason with me if the absolute worst happened (read: if I lost my temper!).}
And again - God's answer to prayer was more than could have been asked or imagined.
2 of the 7 people who had originally offered support were able to join me the day I went to hand over the abuser's device - 2 of my brothers from Moore College.
And, in the end, God orchestrated the time so that we never actually saw/encountered the abuser at handover. {Although even if we had met him, the 2 brothers who came with me were men of the moment - being in my age bracket, looking significantly older, of Anglo appearance (where I am dainty, short and Asian), and having had some challenging life experiences prior to us all starting at college - meaning they would have probably handled any conflict much more wisely than me or other younger friends.}
In short, pretty much the exact provision needed!
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The point I want to make is about God's gracious answers to the prayers I mentioned above.
How He was pleased to answer by doing immeasurably more than all I could have asked or imagined (or what you prayed for me, if you partnered with me in praying over the past 14 days).
I wanted to share my experience so that you, or anyone else reading these words, might see the kindness and mercy of God and His faithfulness in answering little prayers. Also, how His loving provision was unwavering in the face of my flashes of personal doubt. Like Moses and the people of Israel in the desert, sometimes it was hard to believe that God could bring water out of a rock^^^. And yet, in these circumstances, where an undeserving person or people were hard-hearted, unbelieving, grumbling about being left to die - God, the same God then as now, cared for them. And has cared for me - and for my prodigal friend.
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What kinds of prayers and requests will you take to our Heavenly Father, according to what He promised in His Word?
L/T.
^ "My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus." (PHILIPPIANS 4:19)
^^ See previous 2 posts from 2018 for an explanation of the Greek word PHILOXENIA.
^^^ See the Exodus and Numbers story references at the top of this post.
(Bible.)
03 June, 2018
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