Series of Miracles

When you think about it, life is just a series of miracles...every breath, every beat of the heart...miracles every one.

And my Operation Christmas Child life, too, has been a story of miracles.  Sometimes it's just kind of crazy how God answers prayer in the most intricate ways.

My continual prayer this year has been for God to provide enough items to adequately fill 30,000 boxes to bless 30,000 children.  I don't know what each of those things will be but I'm always keeping my eyes open for them.

For some weeks now I've had my eye on some nice fleece blankets at a local store.  I've also been doing everything I can to earn reward points to spend at that store that will allow me to get extra items for free.  A few weeks ago the price of the blankets dropped to $1.59 and I got 15 of them but by the time I had more reward points they'd raised the price of the blankets back up to $3.00.

This past Saturday I had $11.86 in points that were expiring and I also had a special coupon for $30 off a $50 purchase.  I wanted to buy a certain Fisher Price toy to take to my grandson on Sunday, so I figured I'd spend my points on that.  By God's grace, though, I found that toy (brand new and in the packaging) for $1.00 at one of the yard sales on Saturday. Miraculous.

So I headed to the store with my coupon and my points, loaded 17 blankets in my cart and took them to the service desk to check the price.  I expected them to be $3.00 and was surprised when the clerk conferred with a manager and said the price would be .79 for each blanket. Another miracle.

I hurried back and filled my cart with the 13 remaining blankets and got seven 6-packs of wiffle balls to get my total over $50 so I could use my $30 coupon. Back at the service desk the clerk began to ring up the blankets and said, "Huh, they're ringing up at .47."  I ran back and got three more packs of balls and ended up with a total of 30 blankets and 60 balls for just $22 of my free points.

Week by week we've been praying for stuffed animals and seeing God bring them to us in some miraculous ways.  I was talking to my OCC regional director yesterday about this, and he asked, "Well, how does God provide them. Does He drop them off at your door?"  Yes, sometimes He does!

This morning a couple came to my door with four boxes filled with brand new beanie babies--170 of them.  Their donation brought our total to 1,307 for this week.  We're still praying for 193 more by this Friday and waiting to see how He provides.

Just because he's so stinking cute I have to include a picture of our sweet miracle grandson, Sam.

 And because we have a God who always goes above and beyond, let me share with you the exciting news that Sam is getting two cousins in October.  Our youngest daughter is pregnant with miracle twin boys!

Just another in a long series of miracles.