God provides v4 - Dining Room Table

You may remember previous "God provides" posts. Our new van, the Athens2004 Olympic trip, and our new bed are all examples of how God answers prayer. While there are always day-to-day stories about how God provides, we put off posting about all of those until God does something really remarkable! Here is a story that happened last week, told by Hayley:

For a long time (6+ months) we have been praying for a nice dining room table that we could sit arround with our family and friends to share our lives and Lord with them. The table we have, on the left, was given to us and can seat about 6. That's fine for a regular family, but when you have 13 to 20 people over for meals each week it can get a bit squished. We asked the Lord for a new table big enough to seat 10-15 comfortably, but it had to be compact as well so that it wouldn't swallow up our dining room which doubles as a playroom through the week!

At Ikea on Monday we spotted the table for us - here. It seats at least 12 and folds down to a small two person table...it was amazing, and the best part it was on for 1/2 price!! We talked about for a few days and decided today I would go back and get one. When I called to see if there were any in stock they said they were sold out and that particular model was discontinued. I remembered that there was a display table on the floor that we had looked at, so I decided I would go over this morning (thursday) and see if I could get it. When I got there sure enough it was in the "As Is" section. Perfect! But just then a man came out of nowhere and started loading it onto his cart!!! I pleaded with him a bit and he just shrugged his shoulders unaffected by my groans and the three infants in my cart. My faith quivered. The kids and I just sat and watched. He moved towards the check out. I begged the clerk for another, but that was the LAST ONE!! Then a miracle happened. The man looked it over one final time, then he looked at us and said "You can have it". I think he saw that we needed it more :)

Victoriously I took my table to the cashier and found out that the price was now half of of the already 1/2 price table!!!! For all you mathematicians that's 75% off! (100 rather than 400) Great! It came to just over $100 with taxes. I went to pay with my debit card and read the message "insufficient funds" on the machine. I asked the cashier if I could try another account and got the same message. "Oh no" I thought, "I won't be able to get it after all"!! I tried splitting the cost in half and taking from each account...one worked and the other still was not enough. I got 30 out of that account but still owed $15. I rummaged through my wallet and found a 20 dollar bill that I forgoten I had. Yes! The table was mine. No thanks to me. Thanks to God! And thanks to all of you who pray for the people we have over. I'll take a picture of everyone over with the new table and post it some time.

PS. later that day we checked the bank situation and discovered that we had 0.68 cents in the account! The Lord calculated it perfectly!

pps. Our old table is out at the curb if anyone wants it :) Just swing by and nab it