for those who wonder why God doesn't provide

Ever pour yourself a small bowl of cereal, finish it, pour in a little bit more, bring your bowl to the sink, then stand in front of the pantry, eating dry cereal straight out of the box?

No? Oh. Good. Me neither.

It is just 8:22 am as I sit down and try to pour out the abundance of grace I have been bathed in, already, today. Since this piece of mine went up on the Walking With Purpose blog, the amount of e mails I have received from women, all nodding their heads and thinking about time, has been extraordinary. Even more so, the amount of nearby friends I have seen at the 6:45 am Mass has blown me away. Only God can do a work like this. So if you are someone who is still searching for proof that God uses the weak and the poor and quite often, the "worst fish in the bucket" to accomplish His will, well then...here ya have it. Because I am that worst fish.

And while starting the day with Mass is nothing short of the best, ya know what is even better? The parking lot. I have spoken about this before. Miracles take place there. Deep conversations happen. The kind of conversations that matter. I suppose because we have just received the Eucharist, because we are the closest to grace. And as every car but ours drove away, a dear friend and I talked about life, and hope, and managing disappointments. We talked about the no money we have...and I mean...NO MONEY....not even a little. And we talked about living each day minute by minute, not even day by day, minute by minute....because good grief, isn't life so unpredictable? And we talked about her husband's brain tumors...can you even believe that now there are three? Lord have mercy. And we talked about our children, and our anxiety, and heaven, and God's plan, and student loans, and did you know that we have been juggling one car, and tell me, can you trust God too much? What is the right balance of action and prayer? And how so often we have to think that this God of ours has somehow screwed up our stories...spilled water on our pages and forgotten what He had originally written and so He is trying to make it all up as He goes along...but deep down, we give each other a look, because we know He makes no mistakes. Because we know He has it all under control.

Finally, my friend said this. She said "I no longer ask God to provide, because He already is providing. He provides people. People that come around us."

And it just has me thinking, as I polish off the cereal, and chug down my coffee. This God. This God I love and trust with everything I have, and especially, with everything I don't have, but need.

He DOES provide. Maybe not in the physical and material things...like the car and the house and the tuition and the fast and pain free removal of three tumors. But yet, if we open the eyes of our heart, maybe we would see that even so, right now, in this moment, He is providing.

Never under estimate any encounter with anyone.

Because Jesus is here, and He speaks to us constantly.

And I just wonder if maybe, as we kneel on hard ground and beg for that miracle or search and stretch our ears to please hear that loud booking masculine voice telling us what we should do and where we should go, we miss Him.

In His presence in our children. In His voice in our spouse. In His comfort in that out of the blue text. In His promise in the church parking lot.

I don't know what this day will look like for my friend or for her husband.

I don't know what this day will look like for me.

I have no idea if those tumors will disappear, or if a pot of gold will land in my driveway, or if the anxiety will be forgotten, or if children will convert, or if the wounds will all heal, or if I will stop eating the cereal in the pantry. I have no clue.

But I do know that today, after the 6:45 am Mass, God provided for me.

He provided His very self, through the voice of a friend.

A friend who spoke truth and life into my heart.

A friend who knows it is not all good, but that it is always all grace.

A friend who chooses to have trust in God, not because He immediately gives her what she asks for, but because He immediately provides for her, in her waiting.

And I know it sounds crazy to have hope in a God who you might say,"allows such bad things to happen." But that is not the God I hope in. I hope in a God who sees these things happening, and sends me people. People to listen. People who "get it". People who love me through it.

And me, the worst fish in the bucket. He provides for me.

This is how I can trust.

This is why I hope against hope.