Ask And You Shall Receive...

OK, so the strangest thing happened to me last Thursday, but I couldn't blog about it until after Christmas. All I can say is, the Lord is alive and active, and eve works through the ACU bookstore... huh? Yeah, me too!

So at homecoming this year, they're promoting this fancy coffee table book "The ACU Century" all about the first hundred years at ACU. So I think, I bet my mom would like that book, I'll buy it for her for Christmas. Maybe I was a little smug about having purchased a Christmas present so early (usually I'm a last-minute shopper). When we get back to Dallas, I bring the book into the house (I think I did at least) and I must have put it some place safe for the 10 weeks until Christmas.

So around Thanksgiving, I think, hey, I should get that book and take it to Tulsa so that will be one less thing I have to fly with when I go home. I look for the book in all the logical places: the gift shelf, my bookcase, the coffee table, my closet, under my bed...nothing. But I figure Christmas is a month away still, so surely it will turn up. Fast forward to last Wednesday night--December 21. I'm packing for Tulsa, and frantically looking for the book. This time, I'm searching random closets, by my file cabinet, any nook and cranny I can think of. Still nothing.

So I pray, Lord, help me find that book. I need to find that book to give to mom. (maybe a silly prayer in the grand scheme of things, but I think that God likes to hear all our requests, big or small.) I go to bed that night hoping that somehow on Thursday I'll find the book before Sarah and I go to Tulsa on Friday morning.

Thursday afternoon I come home from work to find Thursday's mail on the mail table, but wait, there's something there on the porch. I go outside to find a padded manilla envelope addressed to me, from the ACU bookstore and inside is a brand new copy of, you guessed it, The ACU Century. Now, I never doubted that God would help me find the book, but I never dreamed that he would send a brand new book to me via the US Mail service! I swear at this point in the afternoon, an eerie silence falls across the neighborhood as I look around. I quietly whisper, "and Lord, I'd really like a husband, too, if you're filling requests today."

So all that to say, I took my newly delivered book to Tulsa to give to Mom. While there, I find out that the Lord didn't order the ACU book for me himself, but used Gary to answer that prayer. See, Gary bought a copy of the ACU book for me on Wednesday, but never dreamed that it would get to Dallas before Christmas. He also bought Mom a copy, so in the Christmas excitement, gave me mom's copy, which then began to explain things. So, I took back my copy from Mom, and we all went home with a book.

I'm still missing the original book, but the Lord's (and Gary's) timing was impeccable on the delivery of the new one. So all that to say, be careful what you pray for, the man upstairs is filling specific requests these days...