Just in Time is Not Too Late

I've decided not to take offense at the way God works. I sure would miss out on a lot of awesomeness. Yesterday was a payment deadline for my trip. I owed $1035, and it was supposed to go in a week before I leave.

In my mind, "a week before I leave" was Wednesday the 23rd, not the 24th, however. Seven days before, my bank account was empty and the modest contents of my wallet pledged to the voracious gas tank of the Great White Beast. I had been reading about some awesome men of faith who saw God provide at the last minute over and over again, and I just knew He was saying that He was going to give me the money the day I needed it, if I was willing to trust Him to that degree.

Gifts came in from unexpected places. $500. $100. People were just giving me hundred dollar bills. So Tuesday the 22nd came, and I had this miraculous wad of hundreds, but I was still short $335. In the morning, the thought came into my mind that I was going to get $300 dollars that day. Why three hundred, I wasn't sure, because there would still be $35 to go, but I just let it slip to the back of my mind.

The day passed, and in the evening, a good friend came over unexpectedly. She wanted to give a $100 to me, and $100 each to my brother and a friend of ours who were going on a different trip. When she handed a hundred to Connor, he grinned and said, "Well, really this should go to Cassie because we just got $80 over what we needed today." The math wasn't too difficult...I got $300!

The next day (Wednesday the 23rd, the "deadline") I fully expected the money to come to my doorstep. I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't getting paid till Friday. I spent all morning working very hard to rest in the conviction I had. I didn't get much done at all because I shut myself up in my room, hashing out the desperation I was feeling.

$35 is not a big deal in itself. But the other $1000 appeared to be useless without it, especially since I barely had gas money to get to the bank and deposit it. I could have borrowed gas money, could probably have worked something out, but I really wanted to see God do what He had said He would do. Eventually it got late enough that there was no chance of going to the bank.

Some doubts tried to come..."But God, don't you love me?" It's hard, maybe impossible to love someone completely when you don't trust them. But since this is not the first time in the past few months that we had had this conversation, I knew right away that I couldn't take offense at the way God was choosing to work. Like Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, I needed to be able to say, "I know you will deliver me, but even if you do not..." I told God I would love Him even if I felt disappointed or ashamed that it wasn't working the way I had envisioned.

So, I scraped myself up off the floor, collected about four dollars in quarters from my room (to go to coffee with a friend...but then she paid!), and borrowed $20 from my account for gas, remembering that I would have a $20 babysitting check that night. Then I left. Before going, I realized, with a look at the calendar, that "a week from today" was really the following day, the 24th. It wasn't too late yet!

Judging from the way the story has gone so far, I'm sure you won't be surprised when I tell you what happened. I was just walking to the door after babysitting for the Testimonies class that night, when a family I've barely even met before stopped me and the guy asked if he could donate toward my trip. He proceeded to hand me, yes, another hundred dollar bill!

As grateful and relieved as I was, it was almost anticlimactic, because the biggest miracle had really happened earlier when God gave me grace to commit my love to Him even when it looked like he wasn't coming through for me.

In the morning, Thursday the 24th, I jaunted off to the bank with a grateful heart, made the deposit, and made the payment. And now I just laugh at how just in time is not too late. I hope to never be offended by God's timing.