Questions Answered and Stories Redeemed

Math was never my favorite subject.

Here I was, though, with a paycheck and a calculator in front of me, trying to figure out how to make it all work. Because I had to go to college. But I also needed gasoline. And coffee with people. And chalk paint for the chair in the garage. And plane tickets to Colorado. Okay, maybe I didn't need some things--but I wanted them. The list of expenses didn't match up with the small figure on the check, or the number of months to save until college. And yet, God had promised to provide.

All my life, I had seen Him provide for my family. Extravagantly, at times. But now I needed to see Him provide for me, and I felt He had said that He would.

I hadn't seen it yet.

"God," I whispered over the next few days, "please make this work."

Michaela, one of the girls from Colorado, had asked God in October to give us money to return.

Hannah, one of the girls in my Bible study, was, unbeknownst to me, praying that I would have enough for school.

And then my dad sat down to fill out the FAFSA form.

I had dreaded this part of the process. For both my dad and I, it was hanging over our heads all year, and today, we decided it had to be done. So he spent all day, hunched over a computer, creating log-ins, calculating income and taxes, punching in school names. Finally, late in the afternoon, he finished, and handed me the printed amount the government could give me.

"This," he said, pointing to one number, "is a grant they can give you."

"So I don't have to pay that back?"

"No. But this--" His finger traveled down the page. "--is a low interest loan that you don't have to pay off until you're out of school."

I added the two figures and felt the weight float away.

It was almost exactly enough. If I went to Moody, I only needed a little more. If I went to New Tribes, it covered the whole thing. The whole thing. I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing. This meant I could keep working my current job if I wanted. It meant I could probably go back to Colorado. It meant I could do coffee dates, and refinish chairs, and drive places.

It meant God had heard our prayers.

He heard. He answered. He parted the sea, He gave sweet water, He brought the walls down! This was my story, lived for the first time, and now I, like the children of Israel, saw and experienced His extravagant faithfulness.

Memorial #1 for 2017.

I looked forward to new stories to be told....