unexpectations

i smell brownies. a huge batch of them were baked and cooled last night and i'm finishing up with the rest of them now.

they're for the BBQ. a fundraiser event jon and i are having this evening to raise support for our mission to village of hope, uganda.

it's hard to concentrate as chocolatey wafts of brownie pass under my nose. so tempting.

where was i?

the BBQ. this has been a challenge of faith for me, this BBQ. i know, right?,.. it's a BBQ!!!

but it's been so much more than that.

when we first received some wonderful items that were donated to be raffled off, we looked into the whole raffle idea and concluded that we cannot, legally, hold a raffle. so we prayed together about it and no sooner had we amen'd than we had thought, let's have a BBQ to raise funds and give these donated items away as door prizes.

so i called my mom and asked her for some guidance - she's so good at stuff like that - and the next thing we knew we were planning this thang.

as an aside, my family was so great - very supportive, very generous. they always are. and i just wanted to put this out there publicly and thank them from my whole heart.

we invited everyone we knew. and some people we didn't (my bro and sis invited their friends, too). but as we tracked the "yes's" the numbers just weren't there. and i began to get discouraged. i thought, 'is God not behind this?'

and i prayed [and worried] for the BBQ attendance to grow.

then i checked again. and although the yes's still didn't amount to much, the maybe's were over 50. what do i do with that? how do i know how much food to get with over 50 maybe's?

back to the praying board.

here's the thing, though. i was counting on the numbers to be there (pardon the pun). i wanted to see God be so big in the BBQ that we would fill the house to overflowing.

but what if God's idea of success for this was that someone would learn about God, or draw closer to him? what if the 'numbers' were in moments of belief or raised awareness of orphans?

what if this BBQ has nothing whatsoever to do with uganda or village of hope or even *gasp* me... but that it was fashioned by God to reach out to someone in a way they needed to be reached out to and they come to know Christ as their Lord and their Savior. would it be worth it to me then to have 8 people at a BBQ where someone becomes a citizen of Heaven? ...YES!

then why, oh why have i been troubled by something so menial? i guess i just needed to know that God has his hand in it.

so i asked for forgiveness for such little faith. i asked God to help me to rely fully on him. and to be obedient to him no matter what the outcome appeared to be. and every time i started to doubt or worry, i would ask God to remove it from me.

then... unexpectedly, yesterday aka the day before the BBQ!!... i heard from a friend of mine. she asked if we'd gotten drinks yet because she just received coupons that will get 11 free 12-packs of soda. "i'll take them!" i said. and immediately realized that God's hand is, indeed, in this. and in ways i didn't imagine them to be.

maybe, as i took the first few painful steps to let all of my silly worries behind me, God decided to reward me with some assurance and so let forth a small display of his control and concern. he provided in a way i never though he would: sodas. i thought it would be in the numbers.

silly me.

so as i continue to try and let God do his thang and i try and stay out of it until he directs me, i am in delightful expectation of seeing how else he is going to creatively provide - in ways i don't expect and cannot possible imagine.

Father - i believe in you. please forgive my unbelief.