God Is My Provider

For the past couple of weeks, it has been amazing to watch the ways that God has provided in my life. He used some pretty unusual and amazing things to call me back to Him after I had been trying to do everything my own way since the start of the semester. I can do all things through Him, and only through Him. He provides me with everything I need. And I am constantly in awe of that. Disclaimer: this post is probably the most personal thing I've ever posted. But God has really laid it on my heart to share these stories, to bring glory to His Name and to connect my story with your stories, in hopes to encourage you to trust in God's provision.

This past week was fall break, but this story starts before that. The week before was a super busy week for me with school, trying to stay on top of studies, friendships, and many other responsibilities. I felt like I was gasping for air most of the time, staying up late all week trying to get stuff done. Then that Thursday, I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine. Ever heard of a DTR? It stands for "Define the Relationship," and it's a conversation you have with someone about where your relationship stands. I've never dated and never had a DTR before last Thursday (and let me tell you, they can be super awkward if you're not careful!). I had been interested in this guy for awhile, and thought he was interested in me as well, but as it turns out, he had been leading me on without realizing it and I had been reading waaaaay too much into it. He wanted to clear everything up and told me he just wanted to be friends. In hindsight, it was an incredible conversation. Although I was obviously disappointed at first, God spoke to me that day, saying, "You don't need to be pursued by this guy; he's not the one I have for you. Seek Me first! I have been pursuing you all semester! Turn to Me; I'm the only One who can satisfy you!"

The next couple of days were incredible! Friday, I travelled with a select team to Cincinnati for a HeartSong event, and on Saturday, I was a small group leader for Junior Jam, a day-long camp at Cedarville for 3rd-6th graders. Spending a day with one of your best friends trying to rally a bunch of ornery 4th-graders sure takes your mind off a lot of things! But I LOVE juniors so much; at Lake Ann last summer, Junior Chapel was my favorite chapel of the day. God used that time to refresh my soul after a difficult week. Then Sunday, more incredible things happened! I got a text from a wonderful friend from the summer encouraging me with a Bible verse, and I also went to a new church Sunday night with a couple of HeartSong girls. All weekend long, friend after friend sent me texts, messages, and in-person encouragement, and without them realizing it God used every single one of them to call me back to Himself. Come Sunday night, I was so spiritually full and ready to tackle the couple of days before fall break.

When the day of tour arrived, I had a ton of homework that wasn't done. So I packed up what I could without expecting to get any of it done and hit the road with HeartSong Green. In the van on our way to NE Ohio, Dane and I had a great spiritual conversation about how God was working in our lives. It was partly on purpose; we had to come up with a verse that we both liked that I could share when I introduced myself and him (that way he could be spiritual, too ;). We decided on Psalm 37:3-5, which talks about putting our trust in God and watching Him act. Also on the way up north, we made an unplanned stop in Amish country because Abby had to go to the bathroom really bad. When we pulled off to the side of the road, we didn't realize how deep the ditch was, and we got stuck! Thankfully it didn't take to much to get us out, and with the help of some friendly locals we were back on the road. We arrived at Open Door Christian School that afternoon, went to their school's football game, and had some hang-out time with some of the upperclassmen before we headed out to our host homes. Abby, Ashtyn, and I fell asleep almost immediately.

The next day we got up bright & early to make it to school in time to set up, sound check, and mingle a little bit before we played two programs for different groups of students. For our first time ever playing as a team in public, it went pretty well!! Jim came up to watch us and take us to "snack time" (between lunch and dinner) to talk about how the morning went, and as always, he gave us all incredible wisdom in anecdote-style. We had some free time after that to hang out in the mall, so Abby and I decided to get manicures! Any piano players out there would know how much I appreciated getting that hand massage. :) We arrived at our Sunday morning church in time to set up before dinner, and after a quick sound check, we went to our host homes. The girls' hosts were on vacation until late Saturday, so we hung out at the boys' home for the evening. I got to play Marbles with their host mom and a few teammates, including the incredibly annoying but lovable Dane who kept unplugging my dead phone from its charger.

The next morning I got up a bit early to shower and have some much-needed God-and-I Time in their screened-in porch, praying for each of my teammates and for the Blue and Orange Teams as well. We had an incredibly relaxing day Saturday as we had a late breakfast, rehearsed, had a late lunch, saw my parents who came to visit for a bit and drop off some homemade cookies, rehearsed a bit more, and then went back to the boys' host home for Gionino's Pizza (a staple of my childhood) and some time to "do homework" and watch a movie. When us girls got back to our host home, our hosts were there, and I stayed up with them and talked about Cedarville, piano teaching, the Swordbearers (precursor to HeartSong), and our families. It was incredible to finally get to meet the people who had opened their house to us even though they weren't home.

Sunday morning our ministry was incredible!! We had a quick change of program at the last minute, but it went off without a hitch and it was cool to see God glorified in our worship and ministry. I met some people who knew some of my high school classmates, and my best friend who lives super close to the church came for the service, too. After lunch, we had about an hour and a half to travel 20 minutes to our evening church, so we stopped at Starbucks to evaluate our performance and talk about what we could do better that night. Almost everything we talked about at Starbucks we were able to fix for the evening, and by the time our third performance was done, our team was feeling so much more comfortable with the way HeartSong does ministry. We packed up as fast as we could after the church provided our dinner, but we still didn't arrive back to CU until 12:30am.

I had slept for a couple hours in the van because I knew when I got back, an all-nighter of homework awaited me. I arrived just in time to wish my roommate good night, then buckled down to finish the assignments I hadn't finished before tour. God came through for me in the biggest way when He gave me the strength and focus to get everything done and still manage to get 3 1/2 hours of sleep! All day today I've been tired, but God has given me the strength I've needed for each hour of this day, and He has blessed me with a light schedule tomorrow, giving me a chance to go to bed early tonight!! God gave our team an incredibly relaxing fall break tour, which is REALLY unusual but a HUGE blessing!! He knew that I needed a break and offered that to me. He gave me a chance to get to know my team, to relax and enjoy some free time even while I was working, and to spend a beautiful morning with Him reading His word and petitioning for my teammates and former teammates.

God has been calling me back to Him. He wants to be my True Love, my Ultimate Provider. He calls me back to Him no matter how many times I reject Him, and He blesses me beyond what I can imagine despite my sin. I am in awe of how God constantly provides for me, and I praise Him for it! Soli Deo Gloria!!