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I am always encouraged by hearing how God has worked in the daily lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ. My favorite part of Sunday morning church is our testimony time because I love hearing about how those closest to me personally experience God’s hand in their lives. We serve such a good God, and He cares about small details as well as big decisions. It’s only right that we give God the honor and glory for how He works, so today I’m going to share with you some ways God has touched my life in the past two weeks. Hopefully this will be an encouragement to you. I would love to hear your own stories, so feel free to comment below and tell me about answered prayer in your life!
Car shopping
I’ve been blessed to be able to avoid buying a vehicle until now (we have two vehicles, my mom is a stay-at-home mom, and my dad and I both do most of our work from home), but I have enough things going on these days and enough trips to take in the next year that I thought I should probably find something soon. So I’ve been car shopping for the past couple of months, and in the last few weeks I got pretty serious about looking. I looked at a few privately-owned vehicles, but all of those fell short of their advertisements; I looked at a few dealership vehicles, but they were all out of my budget. I just didn’t have peace about any of the vehicles I had looked at so far, and I was getting fed up with car shopping. One night I surfed Craigslist again and saw a vehicle that grabbed my attention. Even though it was older, it looked like it was in great shape for a fairly good price, so I contacted the owner about it. I found out that he worked at a Christian college near where I live (my dad’s alma mater, actually, and I go there frequently to see friends and attend performances), so that was a neat connection. My dad and I met the guy on campus, and for the first time in my car-shopping career, the vehicle was actually as nice as the ad made it look! The man who owned it was a very nice guy and had detailed mechanical records on the vehicle. From the get-go, I felt at peace about the vehicle, and as soon as I looked at it, I was pretty sure it was the one. I thought the price was still a tad high compared to book value, but I wasn’t sure what I should offer the man for it. A certain number kept sticking in my mind, but my dad thought it was still high for what the vehicle was worth. So I offered the man something a little lower, and he counter-offered with the number that had been in my head all along. That was another confirmation that this was the right vehicle, so I accepted the counter offer and am now the proud owner of a Honda Odyssey. Yep, my first vehicle is a mini van. 😛 I’ve been driving my parents’ mini van (also an Odyssey) all my life, and they’re actually pretty sweet vehicles. Lots of room, plenty of power, not bad on the insurance…what’s not to love? Most importantly, God gave me an unmistakable peace about it.
The washing machine
Our washing machine has been giving my mom problems lately. It kept quitting, and she had to run it three or four times to get it to go through a complete cycle! Needless to say, she was getting frustrated with it and we thought we’d have to get a new washer. My mom decided to pray about the problem. Soon after, God reminded her that at one point there was a seal on the washer door that had come loose and she had fixed it with duct tape (don’t laugh – we do live in the second most redneck town in South Carolina). My mom checked the seal, and sure enough, it was coming loose again, causing the washer to stop mid-cycle because the door wasn’t closing properly. While we do need another seal, we don’t need a new washer! Praise the Lord!
The choking horse
Last Saturday, we were feeding one of our horses and she got some feed lodged in her esophagus. This is called “choking” even though the horse can breathe normally. Molley (the horse) kept making gulping noises in her throat, and disgusting stuff streamed out of her nose (this caused various family members to…um…panic). We called our vet who told us that these things often resolve themselves within an hour or two, but if they don’t, the vet has to come out and put a tube through the horse’s nose and flush water through it to try to loosen the blockage. Occasionally when a horse is choking, it will aspirate some feed into its lungs which can cause respiratory infection. We were all praying that Molley would get better on her own. Thankfully she wasn’t too distressed about the whole deal. Within an hour she had quit making the gulping noise and was acting more normal. She was interested in grazing again (she wasn’t interested in food at all while she was choking), and the vet said that the problem was probably solved! She hasn’t had any complications from the ordeal. Praise the Lord for a quick, uncomplicated healing!
Website on the blink
As some of you may have noticed, my website was down for several hours earlier this week. I still don’t know why, but I had a mini meltdown when I couldn’t access ANYTHING on my blog Tuesday morning. I hate the technical side of blogging (mostly because I don’t know much about it). My stress was compounded by the fact that a) I found out about the problem about an hour before I had to be at my other job that morning, and b) the person who was helping me on behalf of my hosting service via live chat was having problems with his English grammar plus he was speaking in computer lingo plus my problem was not getting fixed. By this point, I was not in a very Christ-like frame of mind and trust was definitely NOT happening. My site was still down when I had to go to work, but while I was at work, I prayed and asked God for forgiveness for not trusting Him to take care of things. I put the problem in His hands and enjoyed my barn chores in the cold, crisp morning air. Thankfully I didn’t have many chores to do and was home in less than an hour. Whaddya know, when I got home, my site had magically reappeared! It’s no mystery to me Who fixed it…. Who knows, maybe the tech guy’s work really did help after all and things just needed a little time? In any case, God gets the ultimate glory.
My own health
I was fighting sickness the beginning of this week, and by Wednesday my body was succumbing. Problem was, Thursday I was responsible for teaching a class at our church’s Kid’s Club. Would I be able to attend, or would I be too sick? Thursday morning I woke up feeling much better and had lost the flu-like achy symptoms that I experienced on Wednesday. Praise the Lord!
The skit for Kid’s Club
Speaking of Kid’s Club, every month we close out the evening with a skit that has something to do with the lesson. I’m responsible to write the skits, and our youth group (plus whoever else we need to fill out the cast) performs them. I’ve had a lot of stuff going on lately and by Wednesday I still hadn’t been able to sit down and actually write a skit for Thursday night. I had looked at the lesson and found the Scripture passage that I was going to try to adapt into a skit, but I was lacking inspiration and wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to get a long enough skit out of the passage that the lesson covered. And of course I was sick on Wednesday to boot, so an intense brainstorming session didn’t sound very palatable. Knowing that I needed some divine intervention, I asked God to give me wisdom as I put the skit together. I asked that I would be able to come up with something interesting that would hold the kids’ attention. I then sat down at my computer, opened a Word doc with the passage of Scripture, and just started turning it into a skit by assigning dialogue and stage directions. To my amazement, there was plenty of material in the passage for a skit the length I needed, and it came together amazingly well! Despite the fact that I wasn’t feeling good, I was able to finish the skit, copy the number of scripts I needed, and highlight the appropriate parts on each. I felt the touch of God on the way everything came together so quickly and easily.
These are some of the practical ways that God has been real to me lately. How has God moved in your life in the last week? Feel free to share in the comment section below!
Sue says
Oh, thank you for sharing all these wonderful works of God, Briana. I’m really blessed by reading all of this.
The way you waited for the peace of God before buying your first vehicle. This is instructional for many of us.
And how your mum prayed about the washer and God revealed that it was only the seal that needed fixing. Etc …
You are blest to be living in dependence on the Lord and receiving His provisions. Praise the Lord !
Janna Hubbard says
Briana,
First of all I have been loving you blog!! Your a THM genius in the kitchen and I’ve benefited from so many of your wonderful recipes!!
Second thank you so much for sharing the ways God has been moving in your life! In our home we call those things “God hugs”. God hugs are simply God’s unnecessary extra showing of affection, for instance the specific number He put in your head so that He could confirm specifically for you “This is your car.” Mmm good stuff. God is so good.
Continued blessings to you and your family,
Janna
Briana Thomas says
Amen! Thank you for the encouraging words! May you be blessed with many God hugs this week.
Melody says
It is so encouraging to know that such a young lady recognizes the good Hand of God upon her life!
Nonie Faris says
I appreciate these reports of answered prayer and blessings. My family is thanking God for hearing our petitions for a granddaughter who is a heroin addict. She is in a treatment center and fighting being there. We have many people also praying for her and I am thanking God that he is doing his miracle of her healing in his own way. His timing is hard to wait for at times, but oh how I trust Him.
Wilma Burton says
Hi Brianna Thank you for sharing your “GOD” moments. I enjoy your incite into trusting God in ALL things. Difficult to remember sometimes. You are wise beyond your youth. God IS Good all the time and allowing his Will to work in our lives is the hardest part. (Whether we see it as Good or Bad) God Bless you Today. Wilma
Becky says
Appreciated this post ~ wonderful reminder to look for the Lord’s hand in every day things. He’s at work in our day-to-day lives!!
J'Layne says
So encouraging! You have given perfect examples of how God does hear our prayers, knows our thoughts and wants to answer for His glory! Thanks for sharing!
I haven written before claiming how discouraged that I couldn’t make the first step with THM…well yesterday I said enough! I prayed and asked God to just help me do one thing and feel good about this journey. So I got up, fixed an omelet with meat, spinach and cheese (maybe not perfectly on plan), but I acted by faith, and it felt really good! Today, I will do another breakfast on plan this time, and do this until I feel confident I can do lunches and continue with each step until I have gotten the concept and learned the methods! Thank you for your blogs! They are inspiring!!
Briana Thomas says
That’s a great answer to prayer! Thanks for sharing! Sounds like you had a perfect S breakfast.