Allen Rice* died suddenly and unexpectedly, and I was in charge of the bereavement meal. Usually we planned for 25 to 30 people, so my teammates and I organized a meal for 50 in case there were more than expected.
On my way to prepare for the meal, I stopped to buy a few needed groceries. I put my purse in the child seat of the shopping cart—something I should never have done. When finished shopping, I went to my car and loaded the groceries into the trunk.
While driving to the church, I felt for my purse, but it wasn’t on the seat beside me. I pulled over at a wide spot in the road and opened the trunk, thinking I must have put my purse there along with my groceries. It was not there.
Suddenly I knew where it was—in the shopping cart in the parking lot! I hurriedly turned around. Arriving at the parking lot, I saw an attendant gathering up shopping carts. I asked him if he had seen a shopping cart with a purse in it. He had not.
“What’s your name?” he asked. When I told him, he made a call. Then he said, “Go to customer service.”
When I identified myself at customer service, they gave me my purse. I looked in it, and nothing had been taken. What a relief! God is so good!
GOD CARES
My teammates and I finished preparing the meal shortly before the funeral ended, so I went to the door of the sanctuary to look in on the service through a small window. The church was packed with at least 150 people—friends they had made in their workplace from which they had recently moved! The service ended a few minutes after that, and I heard the pastor announce, “There is a meal being served downstairs, and everyone is invited.”
I stood up a bit straighter and blinked my eyes. We have enough food for 50, but not for 150! I thought. But instead of going into a panic, I said, “Lord, I know you can do anything; please do it again! You served 5,000 with five loaves and two fish; please help our meal for 50 serve 150.” I thought perhaps not everyone would come, but they all came. I don’t know just how the Lord did it, but He did, and I do know that we had enough because we even had a little bit left over!
God takes pleasure in doing things like this to help His children. He is interested in the most minute circumstances of our lives, and He is right there to help us. Just ask Him, and then trust Him! “Morning, noon, and night, let gratitude as a sweet perfume ascend to heaven” (The Ministry of Healing, p. 253).
* Not his real name