Okay, I realize that title may have you wondering, what on earth? Has she gone loopy? Just hear me out. I have pondered the goodness and blessings of God in my life of late, and I just can't get over how much some of the little things he does just bless my socks off. I felt that the Lord would have me share some of them with others as an encouragment.
My car was due to be inspected at the end of December. We did not have the finances, nor did we have the time to spare to lose our car for a day, as we only have one vehicle these days. So a few weeks went by and we finally had the money and so I scheduled it to be inspected. The day prior to the car going in to get all legal and official, I was driving along, illegally mind you, and a cop passed me. A bit of fear rose up inside me, as I peered out the window to see if he might turn around and follow me. Perhaps he had seen my sticker. Sure enough, he did a U-turn. I decided that I would not let fear take over me, and just began to declare the truth about myself. I am God's princess, I have the King of Heaven on my side, no one can come against me. I am protected and preserved and kept by the God of the Universe!! Despite the fact that I indeed deserved a ticket, I decided not going to worry! He followed me for 6 long minutes, right behind me. The whole time I was watching and waiting and laughing. Finally, as I turned onto my street he continued on. Pfhew. I was so relieved. I was beginning to live as though God was watching out for me even though I don't deserve his blessings. The next day we took in the car for inspection. For a month or more, we had the sense that we would need to drop $400-600 on the car. We seriously thought we'd need 2 new tires as our mechanic had told us in the summer we would, and we thought we may need brake work. I had set the money aside for this and was banking on dropping some serious dough that day. Imagine to my surprise, when I called at the end of the day, to hear the receptionist say, the car passed all you needed was one brake light!! I was elated! What a blessing!!
The following day, Keith came to me with a dumbfounded look on his face. I wondered if something was wrong and asked what was up. He said, "You know that item I was trying to sell, that I thought I was going to only make X amount on, it sold for double that!!!" (He makes his living, believe it or not, as an ebay entropenaur and it was a BIG ticket item!)
I was delighted. I thought, "Yes, this is the blessing that God bestows upon his children! This is the New Covenant life! One blessing after another!!"
I share all of that to encourage! I share all of that to speak the truth of Jesus, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. When you hear someone's testimony of the goodness of God, it should encourage you to have faith for the blessings in your own life. This may seem like a small example, but it came after a month of many other blessings, some little and some more significant. What I realized was, I am to expect my Daddy to bless me. I am to believe that He is good all the time and that it truly is His heart to pour out His abundant goodness upon me and my family in many ways. Perhaps He wants me to get a hold of this truth so securely that I won't waiver and doubt in His truly good goodness!
Okay so on with the rest of the story that inspired the title to this post. Several days ago or maybe it's been a week by now, I found my laundry room flooded. Problem =clogged sink drain that the wash empties into, therefore overflow!!!
I spent significant time cleaning up the mess, then bailing out the sink, pouring boiling water, vinegar and baking soda, and then the heavy duty stuff................still clogged. This was over the course of 2 days. I had no luck. I wasn't thrilled about all of this, but I chose not to despair or let this problem ruin my peace and joy in life. So, instead I began to believe that God could unclog it for me and I asked him if He would please do just that. I would have called a plumber, but Keith didn't want me to. So what did I do, I asked my Daddy to fix it for me! After days of not being able to do laundry due to a drain that just wouldn't budge, I decided to go to the laundromat. I didn't prefer to do that, but I couldn't call a plumber since my hubby just couldn't wrap his mind around that. Anyway, yesterday I went into the laundry room to deal with some of the laundry and prepare to take the rest of the dirty stuff to the laundry mat. To my surprise and utter glee, the drain was empty after having had a puddle of water standing still in it all week!! I quickly turned on the water to see if it would continue to drain, YUP!! I quickly started a load of wash to see if it would drain too.....................it did, and faster than ever!! I was elated, I yelled up to Keith, "Jesus is the best plumber ever!!"
Now you make think I am crazy, and perhaps irresponsible even, but think about how huge this is to a mom of 4 small kids, who does at least 2 loads of laundry a day!! I was dancing and singing and just so grateful that I did not have to a) wait any longer to be able to do laundry in my own home, and b) call a plumber and prepare to shell out big bucks, and c) because my Daddy God saw fit to meet my need even though I simply did not deserve it!! You see it's all of the blessings no matter how big or small, that I delight in!! If any blessing comes my way, I hope to stop and take note, and remember that my Father is kind to me. That even the small things matter to him. That He is not just going to take care of me because I have needs, but because it is in His very nature and heart of hearts to bless me! And any of His children for that matter!! (And do you know what, it is just like him to unclog my drain, because isn't he all about releasing freedom!! haha....)
So, I share this to hopefully be a reminder that we are to expect His goodness in our life! My experience of His goodness has increased over the time I have been getting a hold of His grace. Not just in my circumstances, but inside of me, in my heart and mind! I find myself very content lately. Not everything in my life is perfect, it never will be, but I am content and have great peace, because of His great love and awesome goodness!! Thanks to His grace, I do not have to qualify for the blessings. Jesus qualified for me, so I can live in the blessings and abundance of my inheritance in Him!! Thank you Jesus!!
John 1:16 - "From the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another."
