So yeah- the title is a wee bit corny… but it’s TRUTH!!
So, looking back at “My World Race Story” (the last blog) God is hugely present in my direction to the World Race- but I want to share some of the “small” things- I alluded to them when I said God did some smaller acts of confirmation. I just really would like to share some of those things. And let me say, this will for sure not be ALL of what God did.
Let me start with when I started looking online at the Race website:
I had been telling people previously that I wasn’t sure that I was supposed to be doing the whole 9-5 everyday thing. I didn’t think that that is what God had for me. Low and behold, I get on the WR website and it says, “Have you ever wondered if there’s something more out there? If there’s more to life than empty traditions, routines, and working 9-5 everyday to achieve the impossibility of the American dream?”
WHAA??
GOD.
When I went to the beach for New Year’s and just spent time with God on the beach- I wrote a list of things I’d like to do this year. I wrote down *renew my passport (I have been wanting to do this for like a year. It was one of those things that I would just put off… and keep putting off) and *visit two countries. Well, now my passport is renewed and I am going to different countries!
WHAA??
GOD.
I came back from the beach having no job. I actually got offered a job a couple days after returning. I declined it. I couldn’t believe I did that! My parents couldn’t believe I did that. On January 14th, the day before I turned 25, I had a pity party for myself. I complained to God, “I am turning 25 tomorrow and I’m going to be a jobless failure! I’ve had a good attitude, I think, it’s about time to give me a job!!” **sob, sob, pity, pity** Well, right then I get a text from a girl I had met a few months earlier at my church. She asked me if I applied yet at the restaurant that she worked at. (I didn’t really want to- that wasn’t my “ideal” restaurant to serve at) I told her I guessed I could in a hour. So, she told her manager that I was coming in. I went into the restaurant, filled out an application at the host stand and turned it in. When I turned it in, the hostess asked me if I’d like to talk to a manager right then. I agreed and the manager that my friend had talked to came out. He talked to me and then said to wait while he got the general manager. I talked to the general manager and then he said to wait and he’d get the employee training coordinator. I talked to her and then she put me in the system and asked when I could start training. I said that I could start right then, so we went into the back and started training! I had a job TWO hours after my pity party! I started my 25th year with a job.
WHAA??
GOD.
So now I had a job. :)) Not the best job, but IT WAS A JOB! MY God did that. I needed to get another job in order to make more money for the trip. On my seventh day at the job, a guy (a food and beverage assistant general manager) sat in my section. I waited on him. I talked to him throughout the meal and at the end- he looked at me and said that he just wanted to hire me. That job he wanted to give me has the potential of making BANK (“bank” is a term for a lot of money- it’s used in serving a lot) Great job= more money for the trip.
WHAA??
GOD.
I reconnected with a girl that I went to high school with. We ate lunch at the mall one day. It just happened that that day there was a dance kid’s club going on in the center of the mall. My friend and I decided to go down and dance with the kids. When it was over, the lady in charge came up to me and said that she loved how I interacted with the kids and wanted to know how I would feel if she put me on payroll.
WHAA??
GOD.
I went on a date with God a few weeks ago. I went hiking. On the way up (I hesitate to say that because Greenville really doesn’t have an “up”) I sang and talked to God about my heart, about my mind, about the trip. I was attacked with the thought of ‘what could I- one person- really do? What difference can I make?’ I thought of the apple/bushel analogy I always heard growing up: one good apple can’t make a bushel of bad apples good. The bad ones will make the good one go rotten.
I get to where I’m going and I take out my Bible to read. I read Ezekiel 47. Verse 8 says, “He said to me, “These waters go out toward the eastern region and flow down into the Arabah; when they enter the Dead Sea, where the sea is stagnant[filthy], the waters become fresh.”
One fresh water river makes the whole filthy, salty Dead Sea fresh water?
WHAA??
GOD.
God is there my friends. We need to look. When we do we see Him. Big or Small- HE is in ALL.
God cares about us. He doesn’t just care about the big things- He cares about the details in our lives. Yahweh is thorough!
God is good ALL the time and ALL the time MY God is good!!
<3 Ash
