Everything is being slowly buried under a thick yellow layer of pollen here in Charlotte. It is nonetheless gorgeous to sit and gaze at the beauty of spring erupting.... if you can excavate a place to sit in the mounds of yellow sneeze-makers. The trees are all in full bloom, the lime spring grass is healthy for the few weeks left before the sun magnifies its efforts to kill it. Azalea and irises are parading their glorious petals. Ah spring....ah...choo!
Inside, we are slowly being buried by layers of other things. With the end of school in sight, and both Matt's college graduation and Asherel's Global DI Finals in the next 5 weeks, we seem to never sit down. Every surface is slowly being covered with things we will put away "soon". The clutter is beginning to overwhelm me as effectively as the pollen. Soon better come...soon.
Meanwhile, Asherel is busily adding to the clutter preparing for the necessities of attending the Global Finals. She has to make a duct tape hat for Opening Ceremonies. She made me mine, and then went furiously to work on hers. While I was out shopping for clothes to buy for her and then return for her, she called and asked me to pick up 3 "jingle bells". I went into the dollar store and asked if they carried jingle bells. The woman did not speak English.
"Jingle bells?" I repeated, slowly, carefully.
She looked confused and said, "Everything dollar!"
I pantomimed a jingle bell jingling and tried again, carefully enunciating.
She listened intently and then brought me to the aisle with ice-cream toppers.
"Not sprinkles," I said, "Jingle bells... like on elf hats?"
"Everything dollar!"
So I headed home without jingle bells.... and decided I would help Asherel get her room clutter under control since Matt's girlfriend will be staying in that room in 3 weeks and it will take at least that long to forge a path to the bed. I slowly began rearranging and clearing and moved a pile of things from an end table which I carefully boxed and put in the closet. Returning to the clean table, there on the edge lay jingle bells.... 3 large jingle bells.
I walked out to Asherel who was working on math and handed her the jingle bells.
"Where did you buy these?" she asked.
"They were in your room....you don't know where they came from?"
She shook her head, "No.... no idea."
We looked at each other.
"How many did you need?" I asked.
"Three," she answered looking down at the 3 shiny jingle bells in her hand.
Most of you think I am lying, and the rest of you think I am crazy. At least I have a witness. If you don't believe me, ask Asherel. I have asked God for many things this year, some heart-breaking requests have gone unanswered..... but within a few hours, He gave me 3 jingle bells.
Why this prayer that I didn't even pray was answered so exactly, I don't know. But I am quite sure that every hair on my head is counted, even when covered with a duct tape hat with jingle bells on it.
Exodus 28:35
The sound of the bells will be heard when he enters the Holy Place before the LORD
Vicky,
ReplyDeleteI believe you! We have had several speechless moments when God simply provided exactly what we needed almost before we asked. Or, we prayed and asked Him to show us something we had lost but couldn't find. Once after almost a year of praying, looking, forgetting, a special ring showed up on a nail on our daughter's bedroom wall. No one can tell us how it got there! God did it, is all we can figure!
Thanks, again, for sharing your life with us!