Life Is A Series of Tests

Over the weekend, I have had the opportunity to be provided with a challenge of sorts in my personal spiritual walk which has been changing lately. My goal this year was to work on my thoughts>words>actions as each leads to a progression in my walk good or bad.

I wanted to share with you what God showed me during two specific examples of this. On Thursday evening just after we had gone to bed early knowing that we would all get up early to head to Disneyland to celebrate Kailee's 12th birthday, our oldest daughter entered our darkened bedroom. She wanted to know if we had a gas can.

When my husband who had been dealing with severe neck and back problems all week arose to revive the gas can from the garage, she explained that one of her friends had run out of gas not too far from our home and wanted to come pick it up. My husband kindly left it out on the porch for him and turned on the lights.

He then returned upstairs to bed. In my mind were the words, "you do, because you can." In that moment watching my poor husband attempt to lie down, I asked him if it were possible to not only just leave the gas can out, but to take it to the poor teen who had run out of gas, take him to the gas station, fill it up and return him back to his car to make sure that everything worked out and he could get home.

When he went to my daughter to ask if she could call him and let him know of the change of plans, we were told that a nice man already provided him with gas and he was on his way to the gas station.

Our second situation occurred on Friday night while we were waiting outside Disneyland for the World of Color water show which Kailee requested to see as part of her birthday trip. Earlier in the day, we had to retrieve "Fast Passes" which would allow us to get better seats and be seated before the general public to the show. While we were waiting, Steve asked Kailee for the passes and when she looked into her purse, the stuffed animal she had stuck the passes in were gone.

We went into panic mode at that point and attempted to retrace all our steps to locate where she may have laid them down. We went to the bathrooms and checked the stalls, we checked the park benches where we had stopped to sit, and in the process tempers got out of control and tears began to fall.

God again uttered those words, "We do because we can." In that moment the most important thing wasn't really about seeing the show, even though I knew Kailee really wanted to see it. It was important to let her see love in action and to end her birthday the way we had planned with more memories created and smiles. When she returned in tears saying she remembered where she left her stuffed animal, on a vendor cart selling light up roses, but that it was now long gone in the park somewhere and it was dark, she was devastated. No more smiles lit her face and all the memories we tried to create that day were lost on a vendor cart in the dark.

When I explained that it was no big deal, we could come again at a later date thanks to annual passes to see the show, she was concerned that the stuffed animal she had come to love that morning held much more sentimental value since it had been a gift. When again I explained that it could be replaced much more easily than the tears that continued to fall, she cried even more. Our goal in the day was to make memories that would last for years and this was not the way to let it end.

Steve appeared at that point and explained our situation to a park employee that agreed to let us in without the passes but once more the lost stuffed animal was still a concern. At that moment, God sent the vendor cart right in front of us and Kailee shouted out, "That's the cart where I left it!" and she raced back to the cart. Sure enough the employees were headed back to see if they could locate Kailee and return her stuffed animal to a birthday girl!

She raced back to us with stuffed animal in hand, unzipped the backpack it was caring and handed us the fast passes to the show.

I guess the lesson in all of this I found was when we do the right thing in these situations, God restores what would have been lost. It's when we struggle with our own selfish desires that not only does the enemy win, but we lose as well the happiness and love that God so richly wants to pour forth on us. We all realized this over the weekend and saw the hand of God so eloquently at work to right the things that had gone wrong. He truly does care about all the little things as well as the bigger ones.

I hope this story has blessed you in some way and please share your thoughts with me. I'd love to hear how God's message has touched you today.