… seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)
The last week of the last school term was a very, very busy week. My daughter was finishing at her school and, since it is important to honour those that sow into our children, I had a number of gifts to purchase to thank the various teachers … the class teacher, the music teacher, the art teacher, the extended maths teacher, the P.E. teacher, the principle, the office staff etc. Farewells were being said, new connections were being made at the new school and preparations were underway for my daughter’s 8th birthday party, scheduled for the first Saturday afternoon of holidays. There was also the finalising of new uniforms, books, speaking with new teachers … life was busy …
In the middle of this week my daughter came home from swimming and announced that she did not know where her plate was (she has a plate to help realign her teeth). We questioned her about it, and started looking all over the house, beginning with the most logical places to search and eventually looking in even the implausible places … including the dogs’ bed.
Over dinner, it was discussed how she had not taken her plate box to school and when questioned about what she did with it as she ate, she advised us that she had balanced it on her foot while she ate her lunch, and that perhaps it had fallen onto the ground … she could not remember. After discussing this with her, and finding out that this was not the first time she had lost her plate (it had happened once before when it had been handed into the school office), we explained that we expected her to remember her plate box (with tears entailing) and that she needed to tell us if she needed help with setting up routines that assisted her in being responsible with this rather expensive, but necessary item. With the discussion ensuing, my husband went up to the school with a flash light to search for the plate in the school grounds … to no avail …
More tears ensued on his return and we explained that her second last day at school would need to be cut short in order to get to an appointment with the orthodontist, to have the plate replaced at a further cost of $450 … we all looked around the house again, and we prayed that the plate would miraculously turn up praying … “please do as you did for our camera God (an amazing story of restitution); please do as you did for Kitty Kat God (another amazing story of restitution see http://godisgoodforkids.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/god-cares-about-our-loveable-toys-and-his-children-too/ for the story and others on restitution on the God is Good for kids blog); and my daughter, red-eyed went to bed with another life lesson having been learnt …
The following day Thursday 22nd September was frantic. We had an appointment that afternoon with the orthodontist, necessary since it took a week to get another plate made and fitted and we were due to leave for holidays in a week on Friday 30th September. We also had an appointment for her to have her eyes checked for new glasses, and the shopping to do to find appropriate gifts to say thank you to her various teachers, farewell gifts for the kids all decisions which she wanted to be involved in …
I dropped my 4-year-old off at kindy and thought that I had about one half to get a lot of other jobs done quickly, before I collected my daughter from school early, collected my son from kindy and took both children to the appointment …
As I drove home, I could feel God calling on me to spend time with Him. I “spoke back” saying … “but I have so much to do, I have to collect R early, get her to the orthodontist, get her to her eye appointment, and do all the shopping ready for the last day of school, and her birthday is in two days …” I argued that I had not been well for some time, and was finding it difficult to cope with it all, to keep all the balls in the air, and I felt guilty because I felt like His request was just another demand on my time and energy …. and still I felt Him calling to me …
He said: “have your lunch quietly with me and then sit and spend time with me … give Me an hour it will be worth your time …”
I “gave in”, a bit begrudgingly, but knowing that my attitude needed “adjusting” and I apologised to God. I went straight home, made some lunch, put on some worship/soaking music by Isi de Gersigny, and sat down to spend an hour with Him …
I sat, I listened, I prayed as prompted and then lay back as I felt he wanted me to, in order to position myself to allow Him to just love on me. I did not feel anything in particular but in faith I rested. After some time I suddenly “saw” a picture of my daughters pink plate sitting on her pink and cream doona cover on her bed … I said to Him, “ok I will go up and take a look there, but you tell me when to go up the stairs to look … I will do this for You in faith …even though I feel a bit silly”
I then soaked some more and when I felt God say “go now” I got up, went up our stairs to my daughter’s bedroom and looked on her bed, feeling a bit foolish …
I walked in and looked on the bed … it was not there.
I pulled back the covers, I moved the pillows … it was not there.
A bit disappointed, and knowing I needed to leave in about 10 minutes to collect her from school I thought I would recheck the pockets of the dressing gown and track suit pants that she had worn to swimming … it was not there either …
I turned from the cupboards feeling foolish … thinking that it was all my imagination, and I fought off the disappointment, reminding myself that God was good … when I glanced over at a large basket that doubles as a table top in my daughter’s bedroom, and by her night-light, there, as plain as day, was my daughters plate … 10 minutes before I had to leave to take her to get a new one refitted …
I gasped, barely believing what I saw and started to thank Him. I spent the next 5 minutes or so repenting for my lack of faith, barely believing what had just happened and thanking Him for His kindness, thanking Him for His faithfulness … I then called my husband to ask him to cancel the orthodontist appointment …
As I told my husband the story he gasped … he said he had looked on that basket twice the night before … he swore it had not been there and I knew, had he looked there, which he said he had, he would have seen it there if it had been there … and yet it was so obviously there when I saw it …
God had said … “give me an hour, it will be worth your time” …
“seek first His kingdom … “ (Matthew 6:33)
It is a life scripture for me, I should have known better … the time was worth it … it always is!
An hour was redeemed in not having to race off to the orthodontist’s that afternoon; a further hour was saved for the follow-up appointment that had been booked in to take place prior to us going away (hence the rush for the fitting appointment); and, in that hour of time, He had saved us an outlay of another $450 … so, in fact, sitting with God had earned our family about $600 in “before tax dollars” … not a bad investment in time!
All in all it was an hour well spent … because, in addition, I got some time with my loving Father. Before sitting down to be with Him, there was no thought of getting the plate back through doing what He said, whatever was going to happen, I had resolved to spend the time with Him … and regardless of the outcome I knew I would be refreshed, but in addition, time was redeemed, money was saved and my children saw their God come through for them and us as a family, again, in yet another miraculous way because, as we all know …
God is good!
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…the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. (Rev 5:8 NIV)
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