Every Detail

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink...Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" -Matthew 6:25a, 26-27

I was worried. We had just left the boys with Grammie and Papa and were heading to the Colorado Springs airport. We knew Rob had a job in Florida...now we were heading there to see about a house. We had three days to look at listings with a realtor we had never met, get showings scheduled over the weekend and hopefully leave the state of Florida knowing we would have a place to unpack our pods in a month when they arrived. Phew! Talk about pressure.

The thing we knew, though, was that God had opened every door leading up to this point, so we flew into Fort Lauderdale with big faith that He was going ahead of us now. Still, I was worried. The last thing Cooper, my oldest son, said to me was, "Mom?" I thought he was going to tell us not to go or to say he didn't want to move away from Colorado. But he didn't. All he said was, "Can you try to find a house with a climbing tree?" A climbing tree. That's all he was thinking about? And I was worried that at some point he was going to explode and tell me how horrible we were to move him away from the only home he knew. His grandparents. His life. But he was worried about a tree. All I could say was, "Sure, bud. We'll look."

A climbing tree.

The hours of our first night there went by quickly sitting at a computer with our realtor. We had narrowed it down to six houses and we would set off early in the morning to start our search. One by one, we did our walkthroughs that day and one by one we looked at each other with indifference. Nothing was jumping out at us. And, though it wasn't a deal breaker, none of them had a climbing tree. Hmmm...I saw this going differently. I thought God was going to lay something in our laps yet here we were searching without a clear direction from Him. Again, Lord?

I cry when I'm stressed and there I lay in bed the night before we were to fly out in tears. Why, Lord, would you lead us here if you weren't going to provide? The thoughts were racing and I was sad and I was scared and I didn't know where I would be living with my little boys in a month. I fell asleep crying out to God in my head...

The thing I remember about the next morning was that it was a bit of chaos. Rob woke me, the realtor had called and would be meeting us at a house that just went on the market. Get your pants on! We were out the door.

The funny thing about God is that when we look back at the journey everything He plans makes way more sense. Had I known that the last house we would see would have the most space, but the smallest price tag I wouldn't be crying the night before. Had I known that the neighborhood had all sorts of little kids in it or that it felt the most safe or that when my family came to visit we'd have an extra bedroom I would've gone to sleep smiling. But I am weak. And my faith was shrinking with time and I could hear the words in my head say, "There's no way." Satan just loves that, don't you think? He loves to get inside our minds and twist what we know to be true about God, our Provider. We musn't let him. But I had.

We walked through the house and could picture our kids running up and down the stairs and into the bedrooms when I noticed a plaque above the entry door that read, "Be still and know I am God." I stood there looking at it and instantly felt a sweet peace in my soul. This was it. God had done what he always does. He provided. As we talked with our realtor it became more and more clear that this house would sell quickly if we didn't make an offer. And as my husband and I walked to the backyard to quickly discuss what we both knew in our hearts, there it was. The thing my son had asked for before we left. A climbing tree. Our little detail that would mean nothing to anyone else, but that mattered to God most assuredly. In the busyness of the morning, I forgot to look. But now there it was, a perfect little tree for Cooper and my forever reminder that God cares and had every detail in place before we ever flew from Colorado. Why did I ever doubt?

Do you worry about the little details like I do? The big ones, too? "Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." (Psalm 119:11) I haven't hid enough of His word in my heart? How about you? I challenge you, along with myself, to learn by memory a verse that you can tuck away and pull out when things start to pile up too high in your mind. God is faithful and He always keeps His promises. And He's got every detail in place if we'll just allow Him to unveil His glory in His own time. In the meantime, we need His word to defend against those daily worries that can weigh us down.

God, Help us to set our own agendas aside. Give us humble hearts that will follow your lead. And help us to trust You even to the last second, Lord. You are faithful to the very end. Amen.