Praise Project, Week 26

Can you believe we are halfway through the year (and halfway through summer, bleh)? Time flies when you’re counting by weeks! It’s been a crazy week, and if you are friends with my husband on Facebook you have heard the latest Nielson drama. If not, you’re in for a God story of epic proportions.

On Sunday, Bruce drove to a town nearby to buy a box spring for our guest bed. It was the one time since selling our gas guzzling truck that we could have used it. Instead, he tied the box spring to the roof of the van and drove away. The wind took over and blew the thing off the van. He put on his hazards, got out and started securing it. A nice older gentlemen and his wife stopped to help him putting their hazards on too. With no shoulder to pull over to, the two vehicles sat in the middle of the lane while my husband and the stranger worked to get the box spring in place.

For some reason the car that came up the hill didn’t see my husband’s car or that of the man who’d stopped to help. The driver barreled into the man’s car moving it several feet up from where it sat, deploying her own airbags and sending her, her daughter and the wife of the man who’d stopped to the hospital. You can imagine how badly we felt that a stranger’s kindness had cost him his car, which is most likely totaled, not to mention sending his wife to the hospital, all to help my husband. He said he stopped because of the dangerous road my husband was parked on thinking that by having two vehicles with their hazards on oncoming traffic would see it and slow down. It didn’t work. Here’s what this week’s praise project entails:

1). The car of the man who stopped to help my husband is the only thing that stood between life and death for Bruce. After my husband apologized profusely to the man,  he simply said he was glad they’d stopped. If they hadn’t my husband could have been killed. I am beyond grateful that I was not made a widow that day. Twenty years with Bruce isn’t enough.

2). “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16). God decides when, where, why, and how we move from this life to the next no matter the actions of those around us.

3). I’m praising God for the attitude of servanthood that was displayed to Bruce. Our service to others will always cost us something: time, convenience, money, cars, sometimes our very lives.

4).  While watching my son’s game the other night, a huge rainbow appeared in the sky. I was reminded that God does keep His promises, and in case there was any doubt, shortly after He sent a second one that sat just above the first. How cool that something God said way back in the Old Testament still holds true in the 21st century.

5). I’ve been praying that God would call my children, and that when He does, they would listen and obey. My daughter will be a junior this fall, and college visits loom ahead. I am praising God that she is responding to His call on her life for ministry and looking at schools specific to it.

6). We never study the Scriptures alone. We are never left to try and figure out what it is God is saying to us. Praise God for the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives and illuminating His Word to us.

7). Joshua 18:3 “So Joshua said to the Israelites: ‘How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?'” Wow. Don’t I feel sheepish! How much time do I spend busying myself with mindless tasks avoiding the things God has given me to do? He has given me possession of certain tasks and ministries, and I have yet to take hold of them and run with them. What are we waiting for? What inheritance has He given you that you need to take possession of? Praise God for His Word. That’s all I can say.