God controls our whims

I just had to share this little tidbit. I am a spur-of-the-moment kind of person, doing things on a whim, just for fun. Sometimes we get to laugh at how God uses my whims to work His blessings in our lives. For instance, we are in Canada as a direct result of my trying to run over a beer can in a Wal-Mart parking lot one day. But that's not the story I wanted to share today.

A couple of weeks ago, I was cruising the internet while nursing Timothy. I got on a site that has all sorts of interesting, useful (but expensive) gardening, kitchen and woodworking things to sell. Just for fun, because I knew my children would enjoy this, I ordered all three of their free catalogs. The package of catalogs was too big to fit in our little mailbox, so we got a package notice. Tom came out to the garden one day last week and asked me what package I was expecting. By that time I had forgotten all about my whim, and had no idea what package I could be getting. He drove over to the post office to pick it up.

On the way out there, he saw a van for sale, a nice blue Chevrolet mini-van. A QUIET mini-van. One that works without needing a lot of repair. Cheap. With good gas mileage. It even looks nice. We bought it. Not on a whim (Tom doesn't do things on a whim), but because we needed it.

We have another mini-van given to us by a friend in Maryland seven years ago. It is sitting in our driveway, waiting to be repaired. Tom is going to fix it before winter. Meanwhile, we have been driving around in this big, ugly, noisy, gas-guzzling monster of a full-size van. We have to shout in it, to be heard by the children in the back seat. It needs more repairs on it than Tom wants to do, to make it ready for winter. He thinks he can sell it for what he paid for the blue van we just got.

We have been talking about getting another mini-van, and driving our big family around in two vans. This would give the children more leg room, and also give us more seating for giving people rides to church and for having the children's friends over.

Here's how God used my whim: this mini-van was on a road we never travel unless we are going to the post office to pick up a package.

"And now you know. . .the rest of the story."