At church one day at the end of the service I was trying to go through one of the hymns I was about to play (I was tapping my fingers on a book) and I got all messed up. I desperately prayed, "God, please guide my fingers - I don't think I can play that hymn!" The congregational prayer ended and I had to go up to lead the singing. "God, please guide my fingers!" I repeated. I started playing that difficult, complicated hymn and a peace settled over me. My fingers were always in the spot they needed to be, and afterward someone told me, "Good job today! You did better than you usually do!" That was SURPRISING, to say the least. It's been a couple years since someone has complimented my playing at church. All glory to God - He guided my fingers.
That same Sunday, as we were driving TO church in our 15 passenger, and were a couple intersections away from church, it all of a sudden started smelling terrible. Just BAD!! When we parked, we all jumped out and daddy and one of my brothers looked under the hood. I didn't wait to see what the trouble was - I had to go inside and check the slides but I found out later that the breaks weren't releasing. There was no way we could drive home that way. This would have been a bad situation if it hadn't been for God's providence. Here are the things He provided:
- Our mechanic shop is actually right next door to our church, believe it or not.
- That week our other van (that holds all of us) needed some work done so we had dropped it off and our mechanic said he would park it at the church when it was all done so we could just pick it up on Sunday and drive it home - that's what we'd been planning to do.
We got the big van over to the shop, called the mechanic to let him know, and drove home in our other car! Isn't God so good?!
I play the piano only by ear (for the most part) and was trying to learn a piece once, but had lost the CD. I had prayed specifically that morning that the Lord would give me the grace I {desperately} needed to rejoice at the problems in store that day. My voice was calm and steady and I didn't fret. That was God's grace right there - I couldn't do that on my own at all. A couple minutes later I found the CD.
One day on our way to our homeschool group, my brother was talking to mama and driving at the same time. We came to a railroad track (this one NEVER has a train on it! We've lived at our house for 7 years and only once have we had to stop for a train!) but about 20 feet away from crossing the track, the lights suddenly went red and we heard the bells going off. Oddly enough, there were no bars. My brother, with only a couple years of driving under his belt, had never been in a situation like this and asked mama "What should I do?" There was absolutely no time to stop. "I-I" mama answered. "I'm just gonna go for it!" my brother shouted as we jumped over the track. I looked to the right, and there was the train! I'd say it was still 40 ft. away (my family says 50...XD) and thankfully it wasn't going as fast as we were or else I would say, pretty much without doubt, that we would have been in a train crash. "You did the right thing," mama told my brother. "If you had tried to stop we would have slammed into it." Right there we praised the Lord for His protection and for giving my brother the necessary knowledge of what to do in that situation, with absolutely no time to think!
That incident reminded me to thank the Lord for all the safe trips we have taken. We were in one small car accident when mama was pregnant with me (a car was pushed into her) but that is all. I regularly ask for His protection when we go out, and He has been faithful to be our protector.
Thank You Lord for Your blessings to me!