provision.

A while ago I mentioned that it would have been easier for our house to have sold when we first put it on the market than to still own it and be at seminary. Did I actually mention that here, or was I just thinking it? Oh well, doesn't matter. The fact is, life would be easier in alot of ways if our house had sold before we left town. There, now it's officially been mentioned.

Did I mention that I am learning things and being challenged by things that I would not have learned or been challenged by if our house had sold right away? Well I am. Yesterday I had my trusty old excel document open and was looking at our numbers (aka dollar amounts in our accounts) and I took note of the fact that the numbers there are steadily (and quickly) going down.

Now, I say I took note of that because it was just that. I wasn't saddened by it. I wasn't afraid of it. I wasn't shocked because of it. I just noticed that it's been going down rapidly in these last couple weeks as we get our life and school set up and going.

And then there was a tinge of excitement.

Excitement?!?

Yes, people. I felt a shiver of excitement when I realized that our savings are half of what they were a couple weeks ago.

Because if our house had sold back in April or May or even June, we wouldn't even be thinking about money. And if we weren't thinking about money, we would be living comfortably. And if we were living comfortably, we wouldn't be relying on God the same way as we are now. It's exciting to be in a situation where, if the house doesn't sell in the next couple months, we are going to see how very creative our God is. Because he WILL provide, and if that provision isn't in the form of our house selling, it WILL be interesting.

One small story of how God has provided so far:

As I mentioned in my last post, Nathan and I have been talking about buying a second laptop. We've been talking about it since April sometime, when we started planning for seminary. Nathan is in class or doing homework alot of the time and a second laptop would allow me to blog or email or skype or even just write my book that Nathan thinks I'm going to write. Now that classes have started, we've seriously been looking around for a second laptop and we had a tentative plan to stop by Best Buy on the way home from the DMV on Friday to look at some. ThenTODAY...just two-ish hours ago...we were in a meeting and one of the staff here mentioned that she has a couple old laptops just sitting in a drawer in her office that she is willing to loan out to people. PEOPLE LIKE US!!! So I went to see her just now and we are good to go! The difference between borrowing an old laptop and buying a new one is, oh, three months of groceries?!

It hadn't even crossed my mind that provision could come in someone having spare laptops just sitting around. And yet that is huge for us right now! See what I mean about being excited to see the creativity of God? Isn't that great?!

God does provide. A couple weeks ago I questioned that because the provision wasn't coming in my timing or the way I thought it should come (in a SOLD sign) but it does come.

Now, I can't even begin to make sense of starving children all over the world, or people dying of disease and war...that is a whole new can of worms that I'm not quite ready to open up.

But today I know that my Provider provides. And I'll rest in that today.