Praise the Lord

An amazing thing happned to me this weekend, one in which I experienced the providence and amazing works of God’s hand. I want to share it with you. Those of you who are believers will rejoice with me in how God has taken care of me. For the rest of you I hope this will be a witness to the works of my savior.

It was Saturday. I had come home from my last rugby game of the season, and now I had to take my bike to get fixed. Something had happened to it involving the gears and the peddles wouldn’t turn, so I was going to take it up the street and see how much it would cost to get it fixed. It was 2:00, and I had a talk on Women and War that I was going to attend at 3:00. So I was in sort of a hurry.

I took the bus up there. You get free fare on all the Cota Buses with your student ID, and they have bike racks on the front. I arrived at the bike shop and someone looked at my bike and said it would cost around 30$ to fix. But, he also said there was a bike co-op where you could take your bike and fix it yourself with people around who could answer your questions. By this time it was already about 2:40. The bike co-op was open from 12-6 on Saturdays, but to fix my bike that day, I would have to miss the talk I wanted to go to, which was from 3-7. I decided to go the the talk and fix my bike later. So, I went to the bus stop, caught a bus, and as I was getting on and trying to find my student ID to show the driver, I discovered that I had lost my wallet.

No one who has not done this, or almost done this has any idea the feeling you get when it happens. My heart almost stopped and I had to fight very hard to not start crying. If you think about it, all of you know what a lost wallet entails: cancelation of credit cards, losing cash, losing pics of family, getting a new driver’s license, and in my case, canceling and then buying a new student ID which was also serves as my College debit card.

I thought very hard, and decided I probably left it on the last bus up here. So I told the bus driver of my bus what had happened and he called it in. If I had left it on a bus, and someone had not taken it, they would probably find it. About 5 times I was on the verge of calling my parents and telling them to cancel my credit card. But something held me back. I prayed and I hoped, and as horrible as the situation was, I knew whatever happened would work out and would benefit me in the end. I knew that I had an almighty God who controls the universe and who loves and cares for his children.  Twenty painful minutes later, the bus driver said my wallet had been found, and I almost leaped for joy. I couldn’t believe it and I praised the Lord. Ten minutes later, I was standing at my bus stop (providentially, we had not passed it before my wallet was found), waiting for the bus to come in which I had left my wallet. I was told, when it did come, that a nice lady had found it and given it to the bus driver. Please understand the kind of bums and homeless people who ride the bus, and think of who could have found my wallet. The Lord protected it for me. Also, as disappointed as I was that I could not fix my bike that weekend at the bike shop, if I had decided to stay and pay the money, by the time I left it might have been to late to recover my lost wallet. In addition I would not have been able to pay after my bike had been fixed, and I would have been in a big trouble.

And it doesn’t end there. It was almost 3:30, and I knew I would miss my first talk, which was 3-4. These talks were for extra credit in my Arabic class, and I had to attend at least two, but I had already missed the half of the first one! Well, I decided to go anyway, and discovered that the Lord was still looking after me. They had gotten behind schedule, and were just ready to start the first talk when I arrived there at 3:30.

I was rather overwhelmed by the emotional ups and downs of that afternoon. But I kept thinking about how I almost lost my wallet and thanking the Lord for protecting it. Saturday was a trial put in my path to strenghthen my faith and trust in the Lord, and to teach me to be more careful with my possessions. Believe me, I have learned my lesson!

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