So, if we wonder whether or not we're blessed, we can look out into our driveway to remind ourselves. There, dwarfing our 15-passenger van, is a 33 foot motor home. I never thought I'd see the day. We spent years backpacking, hiking, and generally conveying ourselves without motorization, and I'm sure, lifting our noses just a bit at those who relied on such. But now, now, we've joined them. And, oh, it's so nice. It's nice to be able to put your one-year old down and not wonder what she's eating. It's nice to have a comfy place to park your 7 1/2 months-pregnant self. It's nice to not wonder whether those clouds will get you wet before you break camp or not. And it's nice to look forward to a summer full of bluegrass festivals with all the comforts of home.
God knows what we need before we ask, but we still ask. There is a place for persistence, for continuing in prayer; there is a place for fighting through some resistance (the resistance doesn't come from God, by the way); and then there is a place for just letting it go. We don't know how to pray as we should in a given situation, but that's why God gave us the Holy Spirit. He's a genius, he's living inside of us, and he knows what needs to happen in any situation. Brilliant!
So on a typical day this winter, I was giving the children a little Bible devotional time, and I heard the Lord speak in my heart, "You know getting a camper is on your mind, so you might as well pray about it." Smart God. Okay, so, how do I do that? I felt the Lord lead me to be bold. So I opened the Bible to Deuteronomy 28 and start reading about all of the different ways that we are blessed. As I did, I realized that our camping situation was not lining up with what the Word says about us. We were facing quite a bit of travel and camping this summer with old, inappropriate gear. So I marched myself and all of the children out to the garage, Bible open, and spoke to the camping gear. I told it that it was wholly inadequate for a family our size, and I commanded it to become a camper. (Jesus told us to speak to the mountain, remember?) I snapped the Bible shut, and turned to go inside. One of the kids said something like, "Can you do that?" I said, "I just did," and in we went.
From there, I let it go. I did not feel that I should continue to pray or ask, but just wait and see what God would do. A little while later we found that we had a little money left over from our tax return so we started looking around. Most of what we found was pretty small or pretty rough. We didn't want to be spending lots of time fixing up a camper this summer, but were willing to take what we could get. Whenever we'd go look at one, we reminded ourselves or each other to just follow the peace in our hearts--the peace that the Holy Spirit gives us--in spite of what our heads were saying. We did follow that peace, and passed up a few workable solutions, and then found the Really Great Deal. The 33 foot, 1980-something, $2500, just-want-to-sell-it-yes,-everything-works-deal. Awesome. It even has good tires and a central vacuum system!
God is so good. He has given us waaay more than we had dared to ask for. Please don't let people talk you into thinking that He's not good. He is, all the time.
So this summer, hopefully you see lots of pictures of happy children, a happy mama, a happy daddy, and even a happy doggie, running all over this state, as long as I don't leave the camera at home!
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