The Answer was in the Word

Last Sunday my husband and I took a trip about 45 north of us to get a gift card at a sporting goods store for our good friend's birthday - he was turning the big 40. He had made a special request for some hunting gear from there, and my husband really wanted to get him what he wanted. Now normally when we travel there we make a day of it, or at least a half-day for some good shopping and eating that we can't do as well in our small town. This day though, our time was very limited and we only had about an hour to spend before turning around and coming home. We went and accomplished our one goal (oh and my hubby got some new cycling shoes) and we came home. Mission accomplished, right? Well, our week was busy and on Saturday evening my husband says to me..."have you seen Troy's gift card. I laid it here on the counter so we would remember to take it to him?"
"Yes, I saw it and I put in right here in this drawer so it wouldn't get lost." (opening drawer...only it wasn't there.)
"Um, I thought I put it in here are you sure it's not over there?" I asked.
"No, it's not over here."
So with frustration we both began to look through everything in the kitchen. Now I have four children, so between school, Sunday school, Wed. night church, soccer, piano, etc. I have about a thousand pieces of paper that come through my house each week to rest on my kitchen counter (I can't find a better place) until I see fit to throw them away. So, I'm thinking (and then saying) that is such a bad place to put something if you truly want to keep track of it...we have so much paper come through our house to land on our kitchen counter. Not to mention, that we have two three-year-olds in the house that have full access to that counter. And he's thinking, but not saying, (only I can read his mind cause I have E.S.P. and all) that I should know where I put it if I did indeed move it, or it would be where he left it. Sounds fun, huh? Anyway after spending about an hour clearing off every single thing from my counter and going through every drawer in the kitchen, I still don't find the gift card. (But my kitchen does look really good!!) My husband even went out to the trash can and went through every single trash bag to no avail. No card! We were frustrated. Not only had we made a special drive just to get the card, but we had spent more than usual because it was a special birthday, and now we had nothing to show for it. We were going to work on our couple's Bible Study questions together, but in our frustration I spent the rest of the evening in our room working on the computer and he chose to stay in the living room and watch T.V. We were frustrated with the situation and that turned into being frustrated with each other. Needless to say we went to bed that night without opening God's word together like we had planned before the whole gift card fiasco. I prayed that God would lead us to where it was and I would find out later that my hubby prayed the same thing, too (only we didn't do it together cause we were still mad). We did apologize to each other (in case your wondering) and we didn't talk about it anymore and enjoyed our Sunday together. Late that afternoon while the kids were playing at grandma and papa's house we finally took out the Bible Study questions that we planned to work on the night before. I had stopped thinking about the gift card knowing that it must have just gotten thrown away by accident early in the week and we would not be seeing it again. When we were almost done with our questions we had to look up a passage in 1 Timothy (the other questions had us in the old testament) and I started flipping through the Bible to the back when all of a sudden, there in Romans chapter eight was our gift card! I gasped and looked at my husband. "I prayed God would lead us to this card, and here it was in His word the whole time." Then I remembered I had looked up Romans 8:28 the day before, but I still had no idea how the card got in the Bible. "I prayed that, too," he said, and then we had a good time praising God for His faithfulness to us. We also had a good laugh about how Holy the card was, and that it just needed time in God's word, and maybe if it spent more time there the amount written on the front would actually grow...(we find ourselves really hilarious at times!) I also had to think about how we missed out on this blessing the night before because in our frustration over the situation we didn't go to God's word together. "If only we had done our Bible study last night like we planned we would have found it even sooner," I said. It was just such a tangible lesson on how God delights in blessing us, but we keep Him from doing that when we get too caught up in our focus on ourselves. We should have run to Him first in prayer together, He was just waiting with a smile to show off for us. He is so faithful... if only I can learn to keep the focus off me and let Him have His way in my life each day. He delights in blessing me in the most unexpected ways!
Thank you God for your unfailing faithfulness to me even in my failings with you! I do love you so!

"For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does."
Psalm 33:4

Praising Him for ALL of the blessings found in His word and His faithfulness in my life ~ Kristin