Life Lessons Entry #2: God Meets Our Needs

 Life Lessons will be a series of posts about what God has been teaching me of recent years.  That’s not to say He didn’t teach me before that, it just has never seemed so easy to define.  So #1 doesn’t mean that’s the first God taught me, just where I started recording it. Initially they were intended to be chronological, but that quickly fell through; so I’ll try to date them if possible :)
In my previous Life Lessons Entry, I wrote about God's provision. Mixed in with realizing how well God had provided for us, at about the same time I also realized how He had been meeting our needs.  Those may sound like the same thing, but it was something I deeply felt was distinct from God’s provision, but have been hard put to explain the difference.
It is, perhaps, like this: provisions are things you gather together for a journey that you think or know you will need – it is done beforehand, before you leave.  However, along that journey you may find yourself in need of other things – perhaps unexpectedly.  So God’s provision is what He sets out before us – perhaps before we know we need it or will have need of it.  Meeting our needs is then when He takes care of problems or difficulties that arise – or what we perceive as problems or difficulties; it could be they were provisions all along and we just don’t know it ;)  In my life the events that made this evident involved our cars and our finances.
Shortly before coming to MN in 2005 our good car dropped its transmission in our driveway.  We had to take out a loan to get a replacement that would work well up here.  It was a good enough car but a little iffy for the long trips we took to visit family.  Then in December 2006 it was totaled when it hit some ice and slid off the road.  Unfortunately this was just before a Christmas trip to Nebraska.  However, some friends of ours were just putting their minivan up for sale and agreed to sell it to us.  This let us avoid another bank loan and allowed us to get the car sooner.  They set up a reasonable payment plan for us, and we paid the car off entirely with tax return money in February 2008.  Eventually we decided we needed another car that would be better for trips and for me to get around in, particularly in winter.  Having paid off the minivan, we found another minivan around July 2008.  The car was in excellent condition, but the family was selling it for less than they could have because they wanted another family to be able to have a good car.  When we decided it really wouldn’t be wise to spend even that much they lowered it some more and allowed us to make two payments.  It was entirely paid off in August 2008.  We have both cars still today.
As far as finances go, with me being a stay at home mom money has always been tight.  Yet somehow we have always had enough.  We had an unexpected insurance rebate at one point when we needed it.  We’ve had friends loan us cars when ours were not working, and volunteer time to help fix ours.  We get hand me down clothes and things for the girls.  In countless other ways our family, friends, and church are generous in how they share in our lives.  All this makes our dollars stretch further than we could manage ourselves.  And we have learned, and are still learning, to manage better.  Our needs are always met.  Sometimes even our wants.  I cannot see coincidence in all the little things that occur.  To me it is a testament to God taking the time to meet the needs that concern us in our day to day lives.