testify

I am blessed this morning to share a sweet testimony of yesterday.

This last week+ I have been struggling.  I don't even totally know what my problem is (been there?), but perhaps coming off of retreat and the exhaustion of so much travel last week, a few days with friends from home and then them leaving, too much to do in the office than I can possibly get done, an overcommitted weekend ahead, teaching more than we should be, having a team here all week, losing my hard-drive which has led to so much inconvenience and repeating of work...  

I've been BLEH.

Struggling to find my joy in Him, struggling with patience, and most, struggling with holding on to the good and true and letting go of the bad.  

Ten encouragements fall to the ground as I mull over one unkind word...ten tasks completed as I lay awake over the one unfinished.  Jokes feel more like stabs.  Small discouragements feel like huge burdens.  Finally a few days ago an early morning melt-down with Sofie left me feeling on the verge of one myself.

Grasping wearily for God on Wednesday afternoon, I prayed what felt very much so like a pitiful prayer for two things.

Lord, this room where we keep and host SO many visitors needs a fresh touch.  Our couch is falling apart, the ceiling is leaking in two places, holes of paint are missing from the walls.  We can't spend any money.  I want to make this room look WELCOMING again instead of WEARY.  Lord, I am weary.  

I don't feel your love.  

Lord, I need to feel your love.  Please, help me feel and rest in your love.  I want to KNOW your love.

Perhaps only women will understand this prayer :)  Praying for a living room is not in my normal!  But that room, where we receive and send out so many visitors, friends, staff, students and neighbors, is where we live our life and live out so much of our ministry.  And it looks haggard.  It needs a touch.

Which led to the deeper reality that I NEED a touch.  

My silly prayer felt dumb.  My kitchen timer rang.  Done.

Yesterday the mail came, and as I sorted through boxes of light-bulbs and plumbing parts, a small padded envelope addressed to Matt and I fell out.  It was from a name I didn't know, but when I ripped it open, I recognized it as being from a man who had emailed me about sending some money for a staff member of ours wanting to get married.  He had asked if he could help and said he would send our friend some money.  

This must be it.  I shoved it back into the pile and continued making 40 hot dog buns for the team's final night bonfire.

It wasn't until later in the afternoon that I pulled David's letter all the way out, and started reading about the profound effect coming to Haiti had had him.

He had indeed sent an envelope with a check for our friend...but the note continued.

An envelope with our name neatly typed on it fell out.  

"The gift I want to share with you, the Ayars, comes with no strings attached, other than to know that you are loved."

A check with $500 (!!!) bore our name.  (Who DOES that??)

In one swoop, exactly 24 hours after my silly prayer, the Lord, word-for-word, answered BOTH prayers.  

$500 will transform the room.  That I might know that I am loved.   

by Him who knows

Darn it, I'm crying again.  

Two weeks ago, Christ in David prompted David to answer intimately and word-for-word a prayer he knew nothing about that I privately lifted up YESTERDAY.  

I know it may seem like a small thing, but it is not.  It is a miracle.  

And while it seems bizarre to call "God answered my prayer" a miracle, it is exactly that.  

God of the universe, even in our great weakness and unmerited struggle, stoops down continually to listen to our smallest whisper and reaches out His finger to touch the deep and hurting places directly.

That's a miracle, every time.

And He often answers through His children...and that's a miracle, too.