God is so good!!

This past school year, our family decided to read through a book by Bruce Ware called Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God.  We were learning how God is God apart from us, God is God with us. God is all good and only good. In fact, he cannot be anything other than perfectly good. God cannot change because He cannot be one iota better than the perfectly good that He already is. We learned that God is the giver of all good things. He provides for all that is good in our lives. God controls all the bad things that happen in our world – through His great kindness and love. We learned that we could trust our Heavenly Father for all things that would happen to us.

Then, on October 14^th, 2010, my siblings and I were visiting the Science Museum with some friends. On the way home, my mom called me on the cell phone and told me we had a house fire. Although the structure of the house was still standing, the entire contents of the house were a complete loss.  We had lost everything. All of my clothes, all of my dolls, all of my books, my jewelry, my photographs, my scrapbooks, all of our furniture, our beds, our couches, our dining room table. Our computers were ruined. Everything was destroyed by either the fire or the extensive smoke damage.

One of my first thoughts after hearing the news of the fire was the biblical truth that God is controlling all the bad things that happen in my life. We can trust him even during a house fire. It was God’s grace that prepared our family with biblical truth so that we would glorify Him through this loss.

Not only did God provide for us spiritually, but also for our other needs. Someone provided a night stay in a motel for us that first night. Then, some friends of ours were leaving on vacation the following day and invited us to live in their home while they were gone! This was especially nice for us because we all had books to read and beds to sleep in. Then, a day later we heard of a house that was available for rent and my parents looked at it and found it was a great fit for our family! Although smaller than our house, the rental was very comfortable and clean.

Then, some friends of ours from Owatonna heard about our fire and arranged for us to get some furniture and household items for free. The college that both my parents graduated from closed its doors a couple of years ago but they still had their guest housing and faculty housing furniture. So, our church rented a 26-foot moving truck for us and we traveled to Owatonna and got beds for our entire family! We were given couches, dressers, a dining room table and chairs, desks for everyone, a crib, a high chair, a washer and dryer and many other household items. Someone even gave us a piano! So, one week after the fire, my family and I moved into a rental home, fully furnished according to our needs. We rejoice in God’s abundant provision for our family.

Now we've been in our house for six weeks. And love it. The house fire was a blessing in the sky's tipe of thing.