Since it's Thanksgiving and I'm feeling a bit reflective and thankful, I thought I'd share with you all a story about how God truly cares about even the smallest, most insignificant details of our lives!
From the time I was small, my grandpa was a gardening freak! Until he started getting older and his health not as good, he maintained THREE separate (full!) vegetable gardens. He canned, gave stuff away to family and friends, and made a mean pot of soup - didn't matter what kind - it was fantastic.
When he found out that I loved tomatoes (there is nothing like a sweet, freshly grown garden tomato!) and broccoli, he started growing extra and bringing it to me. When I got married, he asked DH what veggie he really liked, and from that year on, we had an overabundance of cucumbers, too.
The year he passed away, I started working at my last church. There were a lot of people there who didn't like the fact that I was there, but there was one sweet elderly man named Fitz. He was 84 years old, and insisted that we all call him Grandpa. He didn't give a flying fig about church politics; he just knew that he was supposed to take care of the pastors in his church. He was also a gardener, and kept DH and I well supplied in tomatoes and cucumbers.
After we left our church, I suddenly realized that I had no one in my life to bring me fresh veggies (spec. garden tomatoes!), and I was a little sad about that - mostly because I was missing the people who would give them to me. But I pressed on, excited in every way to start my new life.
One day last summer, sort of at the last minute, DH and I decided to go to the Farmer's Market. It was about 1:00 in the afternoon, and it was at its tail end. We stopped by the tomato booth to buy a few, and the lady running it started handing us bags and bags of fresh garden tomatoes of every variety and size!
"How much do we owe you for them?" DH asked.
"Nothing. I won't be able to sell these by next week, and they'll just go to waste."
Overwhelmed, we carried them to our car, keeping out a bag for the front seat for us to munch. About halfway home, I burst into tears - realizing that God had answered that prayer for me without my really asking Him.
That's when I knew I could trust Him. If He remembered something as silly as garden tomatoes, then I know that He's got the "bigger" things in my life under control, too!
