Head- and heart-warming

Winter hadn’t left the calendar yet, but it was a sunny enough day that a walk sounded like a good idea to me.  I didn’t want to squish a knit hat on my head, so dug in my winterwear box in the closet for some old white earmuffs.  As I pulled them apart to put on my head, SNAP!  The plastic ear-to-ear arc broke.  Even household super-glue has its limits and this was one it couldn’t reattach. So I  pulled a snug knit hat on my head.  I like ear muffs but accepted the loss.  Maybe someday, probably at some thrift store, I’d find another pair at a reasonable price.

A few days later I tagged along with my husband to an estate sale.  As we hopped over snow piles to get to items for sale in the house and garage, I found nothing of interest.  (He did.)  As we were about to leave, I noticed a box of “free” things.  Right on top of miscellaneous things that nobody else had wanted was—you guessed it--a pair of black earmuffs, with a metal band of better quality than my cheap snapped-apart plastic ones.  I lifted the “muffs” out, thanked the money-takers for my “free gift,” and almost skipped down the hill remembering:

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 4:19

WARM EARS, WARMED HEART
Now, ear muffs are not a necessity—just something I like to wear when it’s cold. But it was just like God to plan ahead for me. I needed that encouragement for some heavy-duty need-much-prayer situations that had occupied us for a long time. If God could plop some earmuffs in a giveaway box, couldn’t I continue to trust Him for the still-unanswered?

The Lord and I have quite a history with this verse, especially during times of my life where I was between jobs or stretching my savings to get through college and graduate school. I really clung to it   after my parents died and I was on my own at age 31.  Oh, the ways He came through—like freelance-writing checks, babysitting, typing or filing jobs that turned out to be "just enough"to pay my bills.

What can I say to that?  Except, maybe, what Paul wrote as he wrapped up his letter to the Philippian church:

To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever.  Amen.  (Philippians 4:20)