surprises

I have been in a funk lately. But I love how God surprises me with the most unexpected things when I am in a funk. I have had a couple of those lately.

Last week I had Monday and Tuesday off from work, so I was not in the mood to be there on Wednesday morning. But I got a call from Debbie, who is one of my favorite people. She handles our bookkeeping, payroll and other things I don't understand and called to say she was giving Diana and me increases in our gas allowances. Awesome! It completely caught me off guard. She thought we deserved more, so she told one of the owners and made it happen.

A second surprise occurred when I called my dad earlier today to catch up. I asked him to specifically pray for me about something. For some reason, I usually don't call my dad with specific prayer requests, so I felt a little embarrassed to ask him. But God surprised me. My dad's response was, "I always pray for you." That made me feel so good and so loved. And I really needed that. I guess I just expected him to say, "Okay, no problem," but his response exceeded my expectations.

I also had LIFE Group with my 8th graders tonight and it didn't go as well as I would have liked. Distractions came up and I didn't handle them well. They were frustrating me and it was one of those nights where you wonder why you even bother. So I got home and signed on to iChat and up popped a window that says someone is trying to do a video chat with me. "Video chat?" I thought. I accepted it and all of a sudden I'm looking at Ben Seidman, one of my favorite campers from Circle F. (That's us on the left in 2003.) It was unexpected and just plain cool. It was like he was sitting in my room hanging out. (I totally want to buy a webcam now.) And it was great to hear from him. It also reminded me of a line from Patch Adams that Linc shared with us once during a ULife meeting and that I shared with the youth group last time I spoke. At one point in the film Robin Williams says, "When I took on the problems of the people around me, my own problems began to disappear." That's what happened when I talked to Ben. I sat down in front of my computer frustrated with my baggage and then he started talking about things he's dealing with as a sophomore in high school. Suddenly I forgot all about my problems.

All of this reminds me of a verse from Ephesians 3:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I'm so thankful that God loves us enough to surprise us with things that we don't even think are possibilities.