I drove down Interstate 10 looking for it. I wanted to see it. I needed to see it somewhere. I needed to see the number 290.
I had just left my friend Annalisa’s house in Houston and was driving to my friend Laura’s in San Antonio, but the number 290 was nowhere to be found. No exit 290. Nobody with the number 290 in their phone number called me. Nothing.
Ever had one of those dreams where something just sticks with you the entire next day? Or maybe longer? That’s what happened to me a few weeks ago, but with this particular dream I felt that God was telling me something, trying to lead m
e somewhere.
e somewhere. “You’re crazy,” you might be thinking. Trust me, I thought so too.
But I wanted with all of my heart to trust that I wasn’t– that God actually WAS telling me something. I even considered posting on this blog: if the number 290 means anything to anyone, let me know. But I didn’t. I doubted. I told myself that I was driving from Houston and US Highway 290 was on my brain even if I wasn’t driving on that particular highway.
The dream and situation was this: I was sending out my monthly newsletters and hoping and praying that somehow the remainder of what I needed in my support account would come. I know in my heart it will, but my brain–the same one that told me when this whole thing started that $15,000 is a huge amount–was trying to figure out how exactly it would happen. I slept on Annalisa’s couch that night, the dream was so vivid. In it I was checking my support account, reading familiar names but then I came across an unfamiliar name. It was an organization called Safe-something (I don’t remember what, just remember the word Safe). The amount donated was $290.
Such a random number. I woke up wondering what 290 meant. And what was this organization?
I spent the next 10 days visiting friends and collecting items for the final garage sale I was to hold, here in Dickinson, Texas, which is outside of Houston. Among the items: a bag of books from my friend Allison.
Preparation day came and my sister and I pulled an all-nighter getting everything ready. What was donated was OVERWHELMING to say the least. I had more items than I did with my first garage sale, which pulled in almost $900. I advertised, I posted signs all around the neighborhood, I prayed for a miracle. See, my sister has held a lot of garage sales at her house, but for some reason it’s just not a hotspot. It’s rare to pull in a lot of money. But I prayed, confident that God would provide the people and they would buy everything and my support account would be way richer.
Two hours after the sale had begun, the total we’d made was $16.
I was bummed.
I kept thinking: “If only we’d chosen another location,” “Ugh, this would never happen in San Antonio,” “People are not going to come.” My sister admitted she, too, questioned our decision. She wondered if the garage sale down the road was taking all of our business and thought there was no way I’d pull in a huge amount.
We argued with each other a few times about prices we should be giving people.
My 11-year-old nephew Jacob decided he wanted to shop, too. He kept coming over and handing me 25 cents here and there. We had sodas and waters we were selling. He asked if he could buy one. I told him no, just to grab one. He insisted on paying.
At one point we knocked prices down to almost nothing. We figured it’s better to get some money and let them take this stuff off of our hands.
One woman bought a kids bible for $2, but it was in the box of 50 cent books. We decided it was fair to give her the lower price even if she hadn’t asked for it.
After hours of this (and the crazy heat) I decided it was time to pack it up. I took the money bag inside and my brother-in-law started counting.
The amount he came up with: $277.
When I heard the amount, I immediately knew the amount I was to donate to my own account for that bag of books Allison had given me and I’d decided to keep for post-race reading– $13 to equal $290.
I was happy. I told my sister why $13 and about the dream and that I felt maybe that’s why 290 was in my dream and she said, “Wouldn’t it be crazy if there were 13 books in the bag? Should I count them?”
I said yes, but knew there was no way–there were way more than 13 books in there.
When she came out, she had this look of amazement in her eyes. I thought she was going to try to mess with me and tell me there were 13 books, but what she didn’t know was that I had already taken one book out of the bag and had started reading it so I decided if she tried to mess with me, I’d pull out the “Well too bad I have another one so it’s not 13.”
Instead, she told me she was bummed to find that there were 28 books.
But she took out three that she’d bought for herself, which equaled 25.
Then she realized that we’d been selling books for 50 cents so multiplied that by the number of books: $12.50. “So close!” she thought. She then turned to the coffee table and realized, “Oh my goodness, she already took one out and was reading it. The total really IS $13!”
When she came outside to tell me, my eyes grew wide, my hand was over my mouth and tears started to fall.
The realization that everything—every part of that day, the minute we decided to knock prices down, my nephew’s insistence on paying for a drink, the signs we put out, who saw them, who came, who bought, what they bought, the prices we decided on after our arguing all pointed to one thing—–> GOD!
The total proceeds for the day were EXACTLY $290.
My sister and I sat there in complete awe and then she spoke this truth: That the amount was nowhere near what we’d hoped, but what we were shown was so much greater.
We realized that our God made an appearance at our garage sale just to let me know these things:
He Saves us, Amazes us, Frees us and because I KNOW that he was smiling at our reaction, that he Enjoys us.
