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Our God Cares
July 25, 2024
From Pastor Eileen States
This past Monday we said goodbye to one of my girls as we sent her off for a year overseas as a Student Missionary. We spent countless hours pouring over a packing list and speaking with specific people about what all she would need to help make her year successful as a first grade teacher to 22 little students on the island of Majuro.
Sunday was crunch time. We were headed out the door to make one final stop at the store when she frantically shared with me that she could not find her wallet. No identification, no debit card to be able to make purchases on her travels. She and I, her dad and even her brothers spent time searching for that little wallet to no avail. We paused and prayed, asking for God’s eyes to direct us to that little wallet. After sending her to the store with her dad, I continued searching. I looked in all the same places over and over to no avail. Nearly an hour later, I happened to be looking around in her closet and decided to pull boxes down from on a top shelf. Found it!! Praise God. Such relief!
Next crisis? She came home and rejoiced over the now “found” wallet. But then proceeded to stuff all of her last minute clothes into a wash load just to get everything clean. Problem? Something new was in that wash that happened to be black. You know where this is going. There were like 5-6 white shirts in that load with black marks all over them. Oh, the discouragement all over her face as she realized what she had done.
The thought went through my head, God cares about this, too. I said, “Let’s put those items through a bleach load right now. And say a prayer over that load because God cares, and He can do anything.” You know how it ended don’t you? The shirts came out without a spot. We gave God all the praise and glory!
While I was driving her to the airport at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning, she pulled out her phone and began to write a note of all the answers to prayer she had witnessed over the past 24 hours. There had been like five or six. The night before we had talked about how all the training and preparation from books and people paled in comparison to the lessons she had learned that day. She is entering into what will most likely be deemed one of the hardest years of her life, and yet to take the memory of a God who cares about every little detail of her life is priceless.
May each of us keep that memory alive. Our God sees. Our God cares.
I’m praying for your girl, Pastor Eileen! I also spent a year teaching in the Marshall Islands (Ebeye) while I was a student at Southern. I taught 4th graders. It was a crazy year, but great experience for me. And I’m still a teacher to this day! That was in 1990-1991. Tell your daughter to take lots of pictures and remember that it doesn’t last forever. Through the wonders of social media, I am still friends with those “kids,” who are all adults now. Praise God!