Right on Time: When God Provides

Recently, a friend from the trailer park texted to find out if we were having our Monday food distribution. I had Panera bread/baked goods to offer her and invited her over to get what she needed. When she arrived, she immediately began to cry. She and her husband were stressed and fearful because of circumstances which they were helpless to change. As I listened with tears in my own eyes, I began to pray with her and over her. Suddenly it occurred to me that some of God’s provision was sitting right in front of us. I had just finished emptying our pantry of nonperishable foods, packing them to take to Hebron. That bountiful provision in baskets was not actually for Hebron as I’d thought. It was for my friend! Five hungry children, a hard-working, weary husband, another family member who lives with them, and my friend.

God had provided help at just the right time. Grace and truth. Light and life. The wonder-working power of love. Help. And a hope “that does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Spirit whom He has given us!” (Romans 5:5). Doesn’t that sound amazing? It is. That is the life we’re invited to live. We shall continue to serve and invest in the lives of the people He has given us— at the trailer park, at Hebron, in the communities around us, and in the many more whom He might call from the north, the south, the east, or the west!