Catching up by sharing blessings...
I realized today that I didn't blog much last week! I guess the week just got away from me. I have a lot of things to post this week. I want to start by sharing some thankfulness with you.
God is just incredibly overwhelming us by granting us so many answered prayers and blessings. I have already shared a bit how He is blessing our grocery budget. Well, He has also blessed us once again by providing all of the winter attire needed by our children. As we were sorting through all of the clothes that had been handed down to us, we noticed that Steven was a bit short on play clothes. Last week several boxes of clothes were handed to us by our music minister's wife (mom of three boys!), including play clothes! Woo-hoo! The other things we noticed we were lacking were for Angie. The girls love to wear a dressy Christmas dress the first Sunday after Thanksgiving and then again on Christmas Sunday. Well, Angie had outgrown hers. But, God led me to my sewing cabinet where He had already provided some precious material and a sweet little pattern for a dress she loves! I finished it yesterday and it is hanging in her closet awaiting next Sunday. The other thing was a warm every day coat. She has a very dressy one (also a hand-me-down), but it really wasn't the kind of coat she could really play in. So, we started praying. Yesterday one of the girls in our church came up to me after church holding a coat and asking if we could use it. I was nearly in tears! As we were leaving church I handed it to Angie and she immediately knew our prayers had been answered. She was so excited!
Could we have gone and bought one? Probably. God is taking care of all of our needs. But, it's so much fun to lift our needs up to Him and then see how He meets those needs, either by telling us to go to the store while He allows our finances to cover the need, or by dropping it in our laps.
Speaking of dropping things in our laps...we're not quite sure how He's going to use this next one, but we can't deny that He handed it to us! So, we'll be obedient and see what His plan unfolds!
Doug and I have always wanted to learn a language together, but we've just never really settled on a language. Nothing really appealed to us, until lately, that is. We had seen commercials for Rosetta Stone and we talked about how fun it would be to learn Polish, of all things! We just laughed and said that if God wanted us to learn Polish, especially with Rosetta Stone, He'd have to just drop it in our laps. We knew He could, and we knew that if He wanted to, He not only could but would. Yet, it was still a surprise when it happened! Total strangers - members of a crew called Nailbenders - were parking their RV on our church's property while working on a new BCM building here on our local university campus. This particular couple seems to go to each of their "jobs" looking for ways to invest in the next generation of ministry. Well, when they came here, they felt very strongly that their investment was to be in the Hibbard family, and God told them to pay for Rosetta Stone - specifically (and no, we didn't tell them we wanted it)! Now, if that's not God dropping it in our laps, I don't know what is! So, like I said, although we don't exactly know how He's going to use Polish in our lives, we're excited about learning it. We trust that since He knows what's coming in our future, we'll just take what He hands us and go with it.
There are so many other ways He's blessing us day to day. I'll try to be more diligent about sharing those things as I blog. But, I wanted to share those two things with you. I want to encourage you to present your requests to God - not to your friends, neighbors, loved ones, church, or anyone else. They might still end up being the ones to help, but if you let God lay it on their hearts, then He gets the glory! Isn't that where it belongs anyway? He wants to supply all our needs, if we'll just let Him do it!
God is just incredibly overwhelming us by granting us so many answered prayers and blessings. I have already shared a bit how He is blessing our grocery budget. Well, He has also blessed us once again by providing all of the winter attire needed by our children. As we were sorting through all of the clothes that had been handed down to us, we noticed that Steven was a bit short on play clothes. Last week several boxes of clothes were handed to us by our music minister's wife (mom of three boys!), including play clothes! Woo-hoo! The other things we noticed we were lacking were for Angie. The girls love to wear a dressy Christmas dress the first Sunday after Thanksgiving and then again on Christmas Sunday. Well, Angie had outgrown hers. But, God led me to my sewing cabinet where He had already provided some precious material and a sweet little pattern for a dress she loves! I finished it yesterday and it is hanging in her closet awaiting next Sunday. The other thing was a warm every day coat. She has a very dressy one (also a hand-me-down), but it really wasn't the kind of coat she could really play in. So, we started praying. Yesterday one of the girls in our church came up to me after church holding a coat and asking if we could use it. I was nearly in tears! As we were leaving church I handed it to Angie and she immediately knew our prayers had been answered. She was so excited!
Could we have gone and bought one? Probably. God is taking care of all of our needs. But, it's so much fun to lift our needs up to Him and then see how He meets those needs, either by telling us to go to the store while He allows our finances to cover the need, or by dropping it in our laps.
Speaking of dropping things in our laps...we're not quite sure how He's going to use this next one, but we can't deny that He handed it to us! So, we'll be obedient and see what His plan unfolds!
Doug and I have always wanted to learn a language together, but we've just never really settled on a language. Nothing really appealed to us, until lately, that is. We had seen commercials for Rosetta Stone and we talked about how fun it would be to learn Polish, of all things! We just laughed and said that if God wanted us to learn Polish, especially with Rosetta Stone, He'd have to just drop it in our laps. We knew He could, and we knew that if He wanted to, He not only could but would. Yet, it was still a surprise when it happened! Total strangers - members of a crew called Nailbenders - were parking their RV on our church's property while working on a new BCM building here on our local university campus. This particular couple seems to go to each of their "jobs" looking for ways to invest in the next generation of ministry. Well, when they came here, they felt very strongly that their investment was to be in the Hibbard family, and God told them to pay for Rosetta Stone - specifically (and no, we didn't tell them we wanted it)! Now, if that's not God dropping it in our laps, I don't know what is! So, like I said, although we don't exactly know how He's going to use Polish in our lives, we're excited about learning it. We trust that since He knows what's coming in our future, we'll just take what He hands us and go with it.
There are so many other ways He's blessing us day to day. I'll try to be more diligent about sharing those things as I blog. But, I wanted to share those two things with you. I want to encourage you to present your requests to God - not to your friends, neighbors, loved ones, church, or anyone else. They might still end up being the ones to help, but if you let God lay it on their hearts, then He gets the glory! Isn't that where it belongs anyway? He wants to supply all our needs, if we'll just let Him do it!
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