I wrote last week about the decorations at YES Gallery and how the Christmas cheer theme lasted a bit longer than usual and Valentine's Day is keeping its glow through this cold month of February. As I take time to enjoy the beautiful views, I'm adding little touches here and there with things that enhance the decorative holiday scenes.
Last week on my way to the gallery I saw a box on the sidewalk in front of a beautiful neighbor's building that said, "Free", and was filled with all kinds of interesting children's toys, building blocks and tools and gadgets. People leave things often on the sidewalk in this way in the neighborhoods near where I live and where the gallery is, and I usually take a peek and find something fun or beautiful or useful or all three. This box had a box in it with the name "weaving kit" on it, and when I looked a bit closer I saw that it was a potholder making kit which was something that I had when I was a very young child. I picked it up and brought it to YES Gallery, and when I opened it I saw that the metal base that is used for the weaving was intact and as red as I remembered from my childhood. The rest of the kit was gone, most likely used and finished up, but it didn't matter to me because just the memory began to bring back other memories, and now the kit is sitting under the Valentine's Day tree at the gallery where it can remind me of all of the love and joy from many years ago.
When I was very little my family was very poor. I never really thought of it that way then, but now that I am older I know that we were. I was always dressed in handmedowns, sometimes from my brothers and sometimes things that had been worn so many times by so many different people or given to us by other people that they didn't really fit right. Buying something new was a big expense that rarely happened unless I bought it myself. I started working in real jobs when I was nine to buy the things that I wanted and to have spending money when I went somewhere with friends. I never had an allowance, and the work I did around the house was expected and unpaid. Before I was nine I looked for every opportunity to try to make money, and when I was three and I had my little potholder kit, I made potholders and sold them door to door in the neighborhood for I think 25 cents or maybe two for 25 cents. It's hard to think of that now and to remember what prices were like then, but whatever it was that I sold them for, I always found people who were willing to buy them and I gathered my change together to save up for things I could buy for myself.
One day very near Easter, I was at a store that I think was Zayre's with my Mother and I saw that they had special racks with children's cotton Easter dresses on them. I fell in love with the green and white patterns with images of flowers, and told my mother to that the girls in the family needed Easter dresses. They weren't very expensive if I recall, maybe $1.99 or $3.99, but even at that price they were too expensive for my Mother to think of because they were an extra expense, so I told her that I would pay for them with my own money. It's a hazy memory, but when we got to the cash register somehow I either had enough or the woman behind the register gave them to me for whatever I had, or maybe my Mother decided to chip in after all. Whatever the math was, the dresses were bought because of the money I was making selling potholders door to door, and seeing that potholder maker reminded me of that.
God is always our provider, whether it's when we are small and selling potholders and want new Easter dress, or when we are older and there are other bigger and more pressing needs and wants. I always tell people that God provides for our wants, too, and for more than we need, and sometimes in ways we would never have thought of or thought were possible. As I go through my memories of the times and ways that God has provided, I realize that there was never a time that God didn't. Though sometimes I've worried and felt heartache, there really wasn't ever any need to. Just at the right moment, just when it can truly be seen as a miracle, God shows up and the blessing arrives. It's hard to wait sometimes when we don't understand or see where we're going, but when we can take a deep breath and take in the love that God is always pouring over us, we can find the peace to know that what we need and what we want will arrive on time and be even better than we'd hoped or planned.
