In The Balance

Sometimes I can get pretty confused on this Operation Christmas Child journey.  Just what is balance and how do I find it?  How do I balance the need of getting the gospel to children around the world with the demands of work and family life?  How should I spend my resources--time, money, energy?

I believe God has given me enough of all I need to do His will.

The question is--how do I know what His will is in each of the situations I face?

Our second daughter recently got engaged and is planning a wedding in October.  When my husband and I got married we had our reception in the church basement with food prepared by the ladies in the church.  That was the norm in our circle of friends and it was what we wanted.

Our daughter and her fiance have different wants, though, and are looking at a venue with prices that would pack a lot of shoeboxes.  My husband asked me if I'm willing to give up packing so many boxes to finance this.  Am I?

So I've been praying a lot about this and asking God what His will is for our shoebox journey this year.  My daughter has worked sacrificially for years for a non-profit organization that builds and repairs homes for low-income persons and she cannot afford the wedding of her dreams on her own.  Does God want to bless her through us?  

Jesus attended a wedding and made it the scene of his first miracle--a miracle where He provided something that was not a necessity of life.  You could argue that turning water into wine was an extravagance in a world where some did not even have water.  But Jesus did it.

God can provide for these shoeboxes in any way He chooses and I'm eager to see how He does it this year.  In the meantime, I'm still hanging in the balance about what He wants us to do with our checkbook balance.

Retro--Tangled Treasures II--2006

(here's a story of one of the ways God provided for the 3100 Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes we packed in 2006)

Tangled Treasures II – 2006

            Sequels are tricky, especially when the original story or movie or answer to prayer is so good.

            So when, after praying for weeks for some fun items to fill our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes, I pulled up in front of a local discount store and saw those big brown cartons on the sidewalk…well, I had to offer up another silent prayer, “God, do it again.”

            Eyes on those cartons, I speed walked the short distance from the car to the store’s sidewalk where I could see butt-raised women with chains and beads dripping through their fingers.  This had to be another jewelry sale, and by God’s grace I was here for the occasion.

            Last year I wrote about a similar sale where I bought two bags of tangled jewelry for only ten dollars.  After two weeks of hard work I managed to salvage 180 necklaces to be sent in gift-filled shoeboxes to needy children.  That was a miraculous adventure that I thought would never be repeated, but…

            Reaching one of the eight large cartons, I put my hand into the jeweled jumble and gave a tentative tug on one of the necklaces.  A huge mass of sibling strands clung to it, as tight as a West Virginia clan.   There was no way I was going to separate the group.

            I looked up to see the sign on the cash register, “Jewelry—Fill a Bag for $5.00.”  That was just like last year’s sale.  But then I noticed that the woman sitting on the ground by my feet while she tried to match up sets of earrings had a large white bag at her side with the store’s logo on it.  Last year the bags they gave for the jewelry sale were only about six inches by eight inches, but the one she had was at least sixteen by eighteen inches.

            “Hey,” I hissed, “is that the bag you get for $5.00?”

            “Yeah.  I don’t think I can even fill it up it’s so big…”

            I didn’t hear the rest of her reply, because I streaked past her to the cashier and plunked down my five dollar bill, “Give me a bag,” I demanded in a voice usually reserved for would-be convenience store robbers.

            With trembling hands she grabbed my money and passed me a bag.  Then I realized that I had to be home in a half hour.  There was no way I could do a decent job of finding treasures in this mess in that amount of time.  “God, what do I do now?”

            I didn’t hear a thundering voice in reply, but I knew with sudden clarity what I should do.  Just stuff the bag.

            So I found a carton with no marauders around it and started hauling up gushing clumps of jewelry and tossing them into the bag.  Each mass was nearly a foot in diameter and oozed chunky gold and silver chains and beads of various hues.  Price tags and labels stuck out at odd angles and punctured small holes in the bag.  The fourth clump overflowed the top and ruptured the side of the bag causing a hemorrhage. 

            I dragged it to the cashier and gentled my voice as I pleaded, “Could I please have another bag to put this into?” 

            “Sure.  Let me help you.”  She didn’t say anything about the fact that the jewelry mounded over the bag.

            “Uh, do you think I could leave this under your table while I fill another bag?”  I ducked my head a little and handed her another fiver.

            “Yep.  That’s okay.” 

            I shoved that bag under the table to my left and grabbed the new bag she handed me.  Back to another carton, I started the process again.  Within a few minutes I pretty much emptied the remaining contents of three boxes, once again heaping my treasures several inches above the top of the bag and breaking one of its handles.  I considered buying a third bag…heck, why not just throw the rest of the women to the ground and haul off all the cartons?

            Taking a firm hold on myself, I bent my knees, got my arms under my bag, and hefted it up.  I staggered to the car—the thing had to weigh thirty pounds—then went back for my first bag. 

            Minutes later I arrived home and trudged into the house.  Of course, the bag split just as I crossed the threshold, spilling its contents right in front of my husband.  No secrets there.  With a groan he said, “Not again!”

            “But, look,” I hurried to explain, “these are big beaded necklaces.  They won’t be as hard to untangle as those thin chains I got last year.  I bet I’ll have these bags all sorted in a week.”

            “Bags?”  he asked, raising his eyebrows.  “How many bags?”

            “Just two.  It’s nothing.  Really.”

            “Really.”  He shook his head.  “You’d better get ready to go to the funeral home.”

            Drats.  I forgot about going to console a friend who’d lost his father.  I itched to start sorting my treasures.  Reluctantly, I got a big box to hold my beautiful clumps and went to change clothes. 

            Later that night I finally got my chance to tackle the project.  Within minutes I had five nice necklaces spread out on the couch.  “See?  Look how easy these are coming apart,” I bragged.

            From that night I was hooked.  Though it was the busiest time of the year at my job, I wished I could forget going to work.  I didn’t care about sleep.  I embraced the masses with frightening gusto. 

            When my daughter Jen came home four days later to visit, the couch in our family area, one corner of the living room, and the dining table were all completely buried.  “What’s going on?” she asked.

            “Uh, another bag sale on jewelry.”

            “No.”

            “What?”

            “No.  I’m not helping you this time.  Not at all.  Nada.”

            “I didn’t ask you to help.  In fact, I don’t want you to help.  I’m having fun.”

            And I kept having fun all that weekend, until Jen invited her friend Joy for dinner on Labor Day.  Dinner company.  What now? 

            I spent two hours making sense of the mess—laying complete pieces that only needed to be repaired in several large box lids and categorizing the remaining broken parts that showed potential into like piles.  It took some time to get the house in company-order, but I was proud to tell my daughter’s friend that I’d already rescued  76 pieces of jewelry, even though I was still only less than half-way through the first bag.

            “I might even get a few hundred pieces of jewelry out of this,” I boasted. 

            Joy just nodded.

            “I mean this stuff could have all ended up in a land fill,” I continued.  “I’m doing my part for the environment.”

            Jen made a sound that could have been a cough.

            As usual, my predictions for finishing the job in a week proved wrong.  In fact, the job stretched on for weeks.  Every spare minute was spent untangling, sorting, and fixing.  I did the repair jobs on the weekends and after-school hours when the sun shone brightly through the panes of the back door and allowed me to see clearly.  Free evening hours were spent hunched over the table trying to separate strands or sitting in my recliner with a clump in my lap. 

            On one memorable Saturday afternoon I spent five hours untangling six cross necklaces that each had multiple strands.  I finally had to use the jewelry pliers to disconnect some of them to make it possible to get them free.  But in the end, after reconnecting them again, I had six more nice pieces of jewelry.

            “I can’t believe you’re still working on this,” my husband commented about three weeks into the project.  “Why not throw the rest of the stuff away?  You’d still be ahead.”

            “I can’t do that.  There’s more good stuff in here, and every one that I can fix means one more little girl will get a great piece of jewelry that’ll make her feel special.”

            Many of the pieces still had their price tags intact, and prices ranged from $18.50 to $29.50.  As the pieces were finished I put them into shoebox lids—ten pieces in each—and stacked them in a spare bedroom.

            A week later when I updated my count of the pieces I reported to my husband, “I’ve got almost 500 pieces already.  Even if I stopped now, they’d have only cost me two cents each!”

            But I couldn’t stop.

            A week later the tally showed I had almost 800 pieces.  I started fantasizing about making the count reach to an even 1,000 so I could say that each of these nice pieces of jewelry only cost one cent.

            Near the end I cannibalized the remaining components—the clasp from a beyond-hope piece was used to replace the missing clasp on another; a leftover charm turned a bare chain into a pretty necklace.  Piece by piece I kept the count inching toward that magic 1,000 mark. 

            When I hit 984, I had a sickening thought.  I paid sales tax on those two $5.00 bags of jewelry.  I grabbed the calculator, hit the keys to check my mental math, and yelled to my husband, “I just figured something out.”

            “What?  That you’re crazy?” he hollered back.

            “No.  I had to pay tax on this stuff.  It cost me $10.60.  I just realized that I can’t honestly say I got these for a penny each unless I can come up with 1,060 pieces.  I’d need 76 more pieces, and I know I could never make that.”

            My husband walked into the room and just stared at me.

            I kept working.

            Several days later he ambled through the kitchen to the spot where I sat bent over a mass of earring parts on the kitchen table.  “Aren’t you done yet?” he asked.           

            “No.  I just figured out that I can take the dangly parts off these mismatched earrings and put leftover matching beaded pieces on them to make sets.  I’m gonna make a lot more pieces that way.  Do you think they have to have these little plastic thingys on the backs of the wires?  Do you put those plastic parts on when you wear the earrings or are they just for display?” I asked, touching my earlobes that hadn’t seen earrings in months.

            He just gave me one of those how-would-I know stares.

            I couldn’t make myself stop until there were no more combinations to make.  Every possible piece had been used.  At the end of those six weeks when I put the last necklace into the pile and then secured the last pair of earrings to their display card, I stood and looked at my fingers.  My thumb nails were worn down to below the quick from using them to open the small jump-rings on the jewelry.  The tips of my fingers were abraded, and it hurt to even touch them. 

            But that last pair of earrings brought my total number of jewelry pieces to 1,066—a legitimate under-one-cent-each purchase and almost six times the number I got from last year’s jewelry sale.

            Is there a twelve-step program for an addiction like this?  I’d better investigate that before next year in case God blesses me with Tangled Treasures III.

           

           

           

           

It Gets Personal in the Valley

One of my special Operation Christmas Child colleagues was going through a tough time this week and asked God to give her a special verse.  When he gave her Psalm 23:4 she thought, "Really, God?"  The verse reads:

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me;  Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."

She wasn't too excited about the thought of the valley of the shadow of death, and I can't say that I blame her.

Today, though, I heard a speaker shed some light on this verse that was new to me.  In the first three verses of Psalm 23, David talks of the Lord in the third person--calling Him 'He'--but in verse 4 when he talks of walking through the valley of the shadow of death David refers to the Lord as 'You'.

Something happens in the valley that makes our walk with the Lord very personal.  'Him' becomes 'You'.  

Your rod, God, is the challenge I need.  And Your staff, God, is what you use to put around my neck and gently draw me to You.  They keep me safe and they comfort me.

I see You, God.  I recognize You, God.  I cling to You, God.  I depend on You, God.

In the valley, it all gets personal.

Begin To Take Possession

Last night I had a meeting with my precious Operation Christmas Child area team.  We even had a prospective new member there!  We spent time reviewing our 2013 Ministry Plan and reminding ourselves of God's faithfulness.

We talked of how our team exemplifies that truth that "His strength is made perfect in weakness."  We rehearsed the goals from last year's ministry plan that were achieved through prayer alone.

But this morning as I read from Deuteronomy 2:24 I was reminded that God calls us to action.  In this passage God is giving the Israelites instructions for getting ready to go into the promised land and he says, "Arise, set out, and pass through the valley of Arnon.  Look!  I have given Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land into your hand;  begin to take possession and contend with him in battle."

I was struck by all the action words in this verse--'arise'; 'set out';  'pass through'; 'look'; 'begin to take possession'; 'contend with him in battle'--

Prayer is the foundation of our team but God is also asking us to move in His power and do what He is calling us to do.

And so we begin...

We pick up the phone or put up the display table or plan the celebration event or      prospect for new members.

God is faithful.  He will keep His promises.  He will answer our prayers.  He will never leave us alone.  He will lead us into battle.

This year we will arise, set out, pass through, look....

And BEGIN

Retro--Heads Up--2002

(Here's a neat way God provided for the 796 boxes we packed in 2002)

Heads Up—2002

            My eyes scan the aisles looking for red sale signs as I make a dash toward the children’s department of Gabriel Brothers, a local superdiscount store.  This is one of my regular haunts for finding cheap items to fill shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  I move my eyes in a systematic grid pattern down each row of merchandise, waiting for my sale radar to detect a bargain.  In less than ten minutes I’ll know if there’s anything worth buying.

            I gaze to the left and—there!  Just a flash of red.  Like a birdwatcher who’s just spotted a rare specimen, I turn to get a closer look and see the price on the sign—25 cents.  Now I shift into high gear and move toward it at a near-trot, like I’m following a star from the east.

            “Oh, it’s the hats!” I whisper with reverence.  I’ve been watching this rack of little girls’ hats for over a month now.  Several hundred darling floppy-brimmed hats—some corduroy, some velvet—have been hanging here for weeks, and the supply hasn’t seemed to dwindle much.  I watched their price move from $1.00 each down to 50 cents.  I still considered that too high a price, even though I knew they would be a great hit with little girls.  But at 25 cents, the price is, in the words of Goldilocks, “Just right.”

            Now that my cart is right beside the sale sign I’m a little disappointed, though.  The nicest floppy-brimmed hats are gone.  There are about 75 hats left on the rack, and all of them are velvet baseball hats with rosettes and rhinestones glued to the brim.  They’re cute, but not as practical or versatile as the other styles.  I think about how I prayed this morning again about finding some perfect items for the shoeboxes.  Why didn’t I make time to come here yesterday?

            I decide I might as well stop complaining about missed opportunities and just thank God I found these baseball hats.  I know they’ll make some little girls happy.  I grab them off the rack a row at a time and form piles in my shopping cart, taking care not to crush them.

            “Hey, there.”  A voice startles me, and I turn to see one of the store employees standing next to me, straightening her blue apron.  “I see you’re buying all those hats,” she continues.

            “Yeah,” I say in a sheepish voice, “my church packs shoeboxes to send to kids in other countries at Christmas time.”

            “Well, I was just wondering if you wanted any more.  Did you see the other hats we had out here before?  The ones with the floppy brims?” she asks.

            “Yeah, I really like those even better, but I thought they must be gone already,” I answer, hope rising.

            “Oh, no.  I just took them off the racks to make room for other new stuff coming in.  If you want them, I’ll sell them to you for 25 cents each, too.”

            “Sure I want them!” I am amazed.  “I’ll take all you have.”

            “Great!  Just let me go get them out of the back room,” she says over her shoulder as she walks away.

            In a few minutes she’s back, pushing two shopping carts loaded with hats.  “Here,” she says, “come over to this counter and you can go through them and make sure they’re all what you want.”

            I follow her to one of the vacant check-out counters, and together we start to count and stack the hats.  “My name’s Donna,” she says, “and anytime you come in just look for me and I’ll tell you if I’ve got stuff in my department on sale.  I’ll introduce you to the other department managers, too.”

            “Wow, that’d be really nice,” I tell her.

            We stack and count in silence for a few minutes, and then Donna says, “You know, it’s really lucky I just happened to come along and see you when you were putting those hats in your cart.”

            “Well, Donna,” I reply, “I don’t think it’s luck.  I was just praying this morning for God to help me find stuff for these shoeboxes.  I think when you walked by it was an answer to prayer.”

            “That’s sweet,” she says.  It’s not sweet, it’s God’s providence, I think to myself.  But when I think again, I realize it is pretty sweet, too.

            “Okay,” says Donna as she counts the last hat, “that makes 310.”  As I hand her my credit card I think how close I came to not getting all of these hats.  But when I think again…nah, it wasn’t even close.

Screw-Up

Following a tip by another Operation Christmas Child volunteer, I headed to Harbor Freight today.  Even though I have a store just two blocks from my house, I originally tried to buy these 6-packs of screwdrivers online.  I couldn't get my coupon code to work, though, to give me 20% off on the entire order.

So I thought I'd take my chances at the store.  I wanted to buy $100 worth of these 6-piece Pittsburgh screwdriver sets and fretted they wouldn't have enough stock.  They're on sale for just 99 cents per set until March 4th.

I needn't have worried, though, as the store had nearly 1,000.

I only bought 102 packs (a total of 612 screwdrivers) and used a coupons to get 20% off.  You can print the coupon by clicking on the link here.

You can also get 15% off on a $65 purchase or 10% off on a $50 purchase.

The helpful employee even loaded the boxes into my car.

Bottom line--612 sturdy screwdrivers for less than 14 cents each.

Not a screw-up at all.

Retro--Day For A Miracle--2005

(Here's a piece I wrote about one way God provided for our 2,240 boxes in 2005)

Day For A Miracle--2005

            It’s a day meant for a miracle.  January 13, 2005 proves to be a lucky day for us in Erie, PA--a balmy reprieve from our usual winter weather with a record high temperature of 70 degrees. 

            I feel blessedly light wearing only shorts and a t-shirt during my early evening run, and when the run ends I soak in a hot bath, and then curl up on the couch for a quiet night at home.  Snuggling into my comfortable robe, I open the newspaper and flip through the pages.  In the bottom corner of one page, an advertisement for the Millcreek Mall’s January Sidewalk Sales catches my eye.  The sale began today, and I wonder if they have any bargains.  It seems doubtful, since I rarely find anything in the mall stores inexpensive enough to buy in quantities for the shoeboxes.  Besides, I’m all ready for bed, and it seems silly to get dressed to make the trip.

            I finish scanning the rest of the newspaper, but I can’t stop thinking about the sales at the mall.  Finally, I haul myself off the couch and get dressed, knowing I’ll never be satisfied until I’m positive I’m not missing any great deals.

            By the time I reach the mall it’s just a half hour before closing time.  Only a few stores have tables of sale items displayed in front of them, and after glancing at a few of those, I’m disappointed.  Still, I decide to venture farther down the main concourse to Claire’s—a store specializing in jewelry and accessories for children and teen girls.  I walk into the small store and head for the back where I see a red sale sign on a table that’s overflowing with hats, slippers, and even boots. 

            “Welcome to Claire’s,” the cheerful salesperson greets me.  Then she continues, “Everything on that table’s on sale.  You can buy any ten items for $5.00.” 

            My eyes scan the cute suede boots with an original price of $19.50.  “Even these boots and slippers?” I ask.

             “Yep. As long as you buy ten items, it’s just $5.00.” 

            My excitement is mounting.  “Can I buy as many as I want?”

             “Sure.”

            “Well,” I say, launching into my stock explanation, “our church packs shoeboxes filled with gifts for kids in other countries.  I pray all the time to find stuff like this.  I’ll probably just take it ALL.” 

            “Great.  My name is Courtney.  So just let me know if I can help you,” she says as she moves to straighten the jewelry on a nearby rack.   I start to grab sets of matching hats and gloves, fluffy slippers, and the half dozen pair of boots and stack them into piles.

            “I want all of these,” I say. 

            Then Courtney strolls over.  “Here, let me help you.  You can just put them into piles of all one thing.  Like stack all the slippers together, then all the hats together, and all the boots together, and then we can just count them.  Do you want any more boots?  I think there’s more in the back.” 

            “Absolutely.  I’ll take whatever you want to sell me.”

            “That’s great, because we really need to make some space here.  I’ll just go in back and bring out more boots.”  A few minutes later she returns, hauling several large cartons filled with pink, blue, or tan suede boots in all sizes from little girls’ to ladies.  “Just count these,” she instructs, “and I’ll go look for more stuff.”  Before I finish counting the boots, Courtney comes back with her arms loaded full of more slippers, hat and glove sets, and even cute little ponchos. 

            “Here we go,” she says, dropping her load on the floor.  “Now I’ll help you put these in piles.”  We start to sort them out, working in silence for a moment until Courtney muses, “It’s really nice of your church to do this.”

            “Well, it’s actually a lot of fun—especially seeing the way God provides these things for us.  Like me being here tonight to get these great deals.”

            “My friend says I should go to church,” Courtney blurts out.  “She thinks I need some peace.”

            “Well, we all need peace.”

            “I’ve made a lot of bad decisions in my life,” she confesses.  “I got divorced from my first husband and I’m getting divorced from my second.  I always wanted kids, but I don’t think I’ll ever have any.”

            “But you’re still young, Courtney.”

            “Not really.  I’m thirty-four.  Besides I wouldn’t want to inflict my life on any kids.” Another customer is ready to make a purchase, and Courtney excuses herself.  I keep sorting.  A few minutes later, Courtney comes back and hands me a small notebook.  “Here.  Just count up how many there are of each item and put the stock number beside it.  It’s the number right here,” she says, pointing to a tag.  “I’ll go look for more stuff.”

            Courtney comes back with still more boots and drops them on the floor.  Then she says, “What about sunglasses?” 

            “Oh the kids love them,” I enthuse.

            She starts pulling sunglasses off a rack.  “Well, I’ll just give you all these and charge you for thirty pair.  Just write it down as thirty.”

            “Are you sure?  There’re a lot of them there.”

            “I’m sure.  We have more than a thousand pair of clearance ones we have to get rid of.”  Courtney’s name tag indicates she’s an assistant manager.  I hope she knows what she’s doing.  She piles the sunglasses into a bag.

            “Where do you live, Courtney?”

            “Down by 5^th and Myrtle.”

            “Well, it might be a ways for you to travel, but I’d love to have you come to church with us if you want,” I tell her.  “We’re a block up from Buffalo Rd. and Station Rd. in Wesleyville.”

            “Oh, I know where that is.  I used to live in Lawrence Park,” she says.

            “Really?  Did you go to high school at Iroquois?”

            “No.  I’m from Colorado.  I’m starting to think I should move back home.  My life is such a mess.” 

            Another customer beckons, and Courtney goes to her register.  I glance at my watch and realize the store will be closing in ten minutes.  I have all the items counted and tallied.  Most of them have price tags with retail prices of $14.00 or $16.00, and the 43 pair of suede boots each retailed for almost $20.00.  There must be several thousand dollars worth of merchandise here.  I take the notebook up to Courtney at the cash register and watch as she moves her fingers over the keys, entering all the numbers.  “Okay,” she says at last, “with the tax, that’s $113.42.”

            “That’s ALL,” I marvel, handing her my credit card. 

            “Yeah.  You got a lot of nice stuff, but we needed to clean it all out anyway.”

            “Well, we sure appreciate it.  This is such a blessing.  A real answer to prayer.”

            “Hey,” Courtney says, as we look at the mounds of shopping bags, “if you want, I can help you get this to your car after I close the store.”  Several last-minute customers walk in, and she leaves to help them. 

            I haul four bags in my arms and struggle to the car.  I make two more quick trips, while the customers are still browsing, then come back to the store once more.  It looks like I’ll have to make two more trips, until a male customer sees me struggling and offers to help me.  “She just bought all this for her church,” Courtney tells him. 

            “Well, I’m bored,” he replies, “so I might as well help you.”

            “That’d be so great.”  He stacks two large boxes full of boots, hefts them into his arms, and starts off behind me.  “What’s your name?”  I ask him as we walk out together.

            “Dave.  What’s all this stuff for, anyway?”

            “Well, our church packs shoeboxes full of gifts to send to kids in other countries.  I pray all the time to find bargains like this, and tonight God really answered prayer.  I got all this stuff for fifty cents each.”

            “No way.  Even these boots?”

            “Yeah.  All of it.  This will make a lot of kids really, really happy.”  When we get to the car, I struggle to find the key in my pocket and open the trunk. 

            “Man, your car is FULL!” Dave sounds amazed. 

            “Well, God is really good at answering prayer,” I chuckle.  We wedge the boxes and bags into the trunk and back seat, and I turn to walk back into the mall with Dave.  “I want to thank Courtney again,” I explain to him.

            As we approach the store, Dave’s wife and daughter are walking out to meet him.  “Hey, you’ve got a great guy,” I say with a smile.  They nod and wave.

            I go back into Claire’s and see Courtney cleaning up.  I wish we had more time to talk.  “Courtney, I just wanted to come back to thank you again.  You’ve been such a blessing tonight and a real answer to prayer.”  She smiles.

            “Courtney,” I continue, “I don’t think it was a coincidence that we met tonight.  I just want you to know that God loves you and He has a great plan for your life.  You can start your life again right now.  I’m going to be praying for you, and I’ll have some of my friends praying for you.”  She opens her arms, and we move to embrace. 

            “Thanks,” she whispers into my ear.  After another squeeze, I turn to leave, then pray for Courtney all the way to the car and on my drive home.  I am still praying for her as I count and sort all the things I purchased—257 beautiful clothing items. 

            The next day I write a letter to Courtney telling her all the things I wish I’d had time to say the night before.  I write about how much God loves her, how she can ask Jesus to forgive her and give her a new life, and how she can contact me so that maybe we can get together again.  I seal the letter in a large envelope along with a Bible and some other literature, and then I drive up to the mall and leave it with another employee at Claire’s.  Courtney isn’t there today. 

            I keep praying for Courtney.  I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again, but I sense that God will somehow use our meeting to bless her.  After all, it was a day meant for a miracle.