Miracels of Provison

I had a group of folks meeting at my house on Saturdays for a bible study I was leading -this was back in the late 90's. The Lord had used me a few months earlier to bring a man to salvation that was basically a criminal. Well, after he got saved, although he hadn't done anything wrong since, he got caught for what he'd done before and sent to prison for a year. I didn't want him to lose what he'd learned and wanted him to stay in the word, but the stupid prison had all kinds of rules about sending stuff, even bibles, to prisoners. Plus, as usual, I was dead broke. This was before I knew Bruce even and was trying to raise my kids on minimum wage. Everyone at the bible study was in the same shape I was, we all worked at the same place after all LOL. So I did the only thing I could do, I asked the Lord to provide either the money to buy the bible I wanted to send him, or the bible itself. That was on a Friday night when I went to bed.

The next day as the group slowly gathered, each one handed me money shortly after they came in the door. Now, I had not told anyone about what I wanted to do, nor had I, or would I ever ask anyone for money, for that or for the bible study -we'd always agreed on that! So I was very dumbfounded when each person took me aside privately to hand me money. Each and every one of them told me the same thing, not knowing that everyone else in the room had done and said the exact same thing! They all told me that though they didn't understand it, and it hadn't ever happened to them before, they felt very, very strongly from the time they woke up that they had to give me X amount of money! I had also scrapped up a few dollars of course, but only a few. So when the last person had done this, I just couldn't contain myself. I didn't know for "sure", but I had a strong hunch that I now had enough money to buy and mail that bible to the guy, so I told them all what had just happened and what I had prayed the night before. We sat together and counted out all the money and I called our christian book store. I think every single one of us was holding our breath waiting while the lady went to check on the price of the bible I wanted. When she came back, we had more then enough! But why did we have "extra"??? I knew God didn't give "extra" for no reason....was I doing something wrong? Then they started laughing and said, "Cindy, you still have to mail it!" Sure enough, we went and got the bible, wrapped it up and took it to the post office and the money it cost was exactly what we had, right down to the very penny!

So he got his bible and was able to use the year in prison feeding on God's Word and growing in his faith! He did well too and would write and ask me all kinds of questions about what he was reading. So I'd write long letters back explaining it all, so I know that the Lord really worked on His heart and he continued to grow. I've lost touch with him since, as he lives in another state, but hear once in awhile, usually Christmas and know he still loves the Lord and is close to Him.

I'd forgotten all about that! How cool!