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By Kiri Christina Hyatt
I have this friend. I know God loves her and He has given me a love for her, but she has problems. She’s mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, learning disabled, rebellious, angry, phobic, has physical problems; I guess I should stop there. Just let me say she has major problems and God called me to be her friend, so I try to help her, which isn’t easy.
It was summer 2000 and I faced a dilemma, my friend’s birthday was coming up. With most people I do a pretty good job of picking out presents for them, but not this friend. She hates almost everything I have ever gotten her. So this year I decided to be smart and ask God what I should get her. I couldn’t afford much, but I wanted to get her something. That initial prayer started an adventure I will never forget.
It didn’t take long for the Holy Spirit to start whispering His plans to me. My prayer allowed Him to plant a seed in my heart and with continued prayers-- that seed bloomed into a beautiful gift not only for my friend, but for others as well.
Our Heavenly Father wanted my friend to have a Bible, but not just any Bible. He wanted an expensive genuine leather Bible; a Bible made just for women with her name engraved on the cover. With that knowledge in my heart, I visited several Christian Book Stores in town to find the Bible the Holy Spirit told me to get her. I evaluated and compared every Woman’s Bible on the market. I finally decided the best choice for my friend would be the NKJV Woman’s Study Bible, by Thomas Nelson / Word publishers. There was just one problem, it had a price tag of $75.00, way more then I could ever afford to spend.
God never tells us to do something without providing a way to accomplish the task. So I went home and started praying. It didn’t take long for an idea to grow in my heart. I was to start saving all the coins I find on the ground for the Bible. So I quickly found a jar to put the coins in and started saving. As I don’t own a car and must depend on the bus it was easy to keep my eyes open for pennies lying on the ground. But I had never in all my life found as many coins as I started finding for that Bible. I would find them in the dark on the way to church, hiding in weeds, and even in the mud. I know beyond any doubt that the Lord was showing me these coins. The first month I found over 60¢.
Though I saw many small miracles that first month, I wasn’t prepared for what God would do next. One day I was waiting for the bus at a grocery store when I got up to throw some trash in the garbage can. By the can I found 2 pennies in the weeds. I started looking around to see if there were any more but couldn't find any. So I headed back to the bench to wait for the bus. As I walked to the bench, a gray-haired man walking down the sidewalk asked if I lost something. I explained I had found some pennies, that I lived on almost nothing and I was saving the pennies I find on the ground to buy a friend a present. I never told him that the friend is disabled or what the present is. This total stranger reached for his wallet and started to remove some money from it. In the process a $20 bill fell to the ground. He pointed to it and said "that is for you" and walked off. I had never seen this man before or since. After picking up the $20 bill, I managed to yell at him "God bless you". To this day I wonder, was he a real person or an angel in disguise?
That would not be the end of the surprises. Money started coming from everywhere. Besides the money I continued to find on the ground, an "angel" started leaving gold dollar coins on my Sunday school seat, and several people gave me cash.
Then it happened. I run a young struggling nonprofit ministry and each Wednesday on the way to church I check the ministry’s PO Box. It was an October afternoon when I found three envelopes in the mail from total strangers with out-of-state postmarks. Inside each envelope there contained a short message, "this is for the Bible". One envelope contained a check for $25, the second envelope contained $20, and the final envelope contained $30. In one day I had received enough money to purchase the Bible. I was so in shock and so excited that when I got to church later that day I shared what God did.
The next day I called all three major Christian Bookstores in town to be told no one had the Woman’s Study Bible in leather in blue in stock. On Saturday I called one of the stores intending to see how much it would cost me to order that Bible. I intended to compare their cost with what it would cost to order the Bible over the Internet. Once again the Lord was at work. They not only had the Bible in stock, but it was on the sale rack for only $54.97. That left me with about $50 too much!
Knowing God never makes mistakes, that He doesn’t need to take a remedial math class and that I was given this extra money for a reason, I once again went to prayer. I needed to know what to do with all this money.
I never expected what He told me to do. I was to buy Bibles for Tina, a friend in another state who is also very poor. I contacted her and asked if she had this need. It turns out Tina is developing a ministry to the Native American people and she wants to give out a specific translation of the Bible written the way Native Americans think. When I told Tina about the money and what God had led me to do with it, she wrote back that the offer was confirmation that she was proceeding in the direction God wanted her to, and also encouragement that God was taking care of the needs already.
I was sitting in Sunday School the day after I bought that Woman’s Study Bible and we were having a special assembly. That week’s special teacher started out telling us she had no idea what the lesson was on when she agreed to teach that particular day. You see, the teacher is a CPA, paid to tell people how to spend their money and the lesson was on Mark 12:41-44:
41
Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. 42Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. 43So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; 44"for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."(NKJV)
In case you aren’t an expert in ancient Roman money, a quadrans is equal to our penny. This widow had barely a penny to her name, yet she trusted God and His word so much, and loved Him so much that she willingly gave all she had to the temple. Now that is faith.
But that isn’t the part of the lesson I want to share with you. The teacher shared with us what a friend had taught her. When we find money on the ground, that is God’s way of telling us there is more then enough money to go around. We don’t need to worry about our finances or hoard our money or be concerned about tomorrow. The Lord will take care of us: He is in control. The teacher went on to say that when God allows us to find money on the ground, that money is not for us to keep, but for us to give away.
Before the Lord told me to get this Bible, I always kept the money I found on the ground. Between the miracles I witnessed over the past few months and that Sunday School lesson, I will never again keep any money I find on the ground. From now on, I will give that money wherever God shows me.
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