Sunday, November 8, 2009

Answered Prayers

Do you ever have those days when too many things start do go horribly wrong and the timing is really bad? Well, yesterday was that day! Actually it started on sooner than that.
This weekend was our Ministry Fair at church, which is one of my major responsibilities and takes months of planning. It is part of a month of stewardship activities.
It began on Tuesday when I asked our maintenance man to bring over the ministry books we had stored from last year. He couldn't find them, ANYWHERE in the hall or church. So, we began praying to St. Anthony. And we looked some more, but to no avail. I am talking about 1200 books here, gone, vanished like we all wish our wrinkles would! No problem, I printed mini booklets we had sent out to non participating parishioners.
On Friday I go to the bakery to pick up bread we need and it's late. Not a big deal, they give me a cafe con leche while I wait 30 minutes. While I am waiting for the bread, my food rep leaves me a few voice mail messages at the office to explain how he forgot to put my order in and when did I really need the food? He assures me the food will be at the parish by 9 am Saturday, so I schedule the volunteer chef to come at 10 am to make the finger sandwiches. 9 , 9:30, 9:45 finally I call and again I am assured the food is on the way. By 10:30 part of the food is delivered, the rest comes at 1 or so, but at least the sandwiches get made.
Then I get a message that the person in charge of preparing and serving the food is on the way to the ER with her mom, with another stroke or an allergic reaction to her medication.
At this point I am truly starting to wonder if I am doing anything that I should be in my life since this must be God's way of telling me I am in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong, wrong, all wrong. But I keep praying, thinking, thinking, praying, and making phone calls trying to put out the fires.
Of course, while I am doing this I am setting up for the fair and thinking about all the other things that have happened this week, including three people being hospitalized, two of whom had surgery.
And in the end, every single need was taken care of and the hospitalized people are recovering.
Were all these little problems tests, was it the devil, was it poor planning? I don't know. I do know that instead of giving up I just kept doing what I could and praying that whatever should happen would. God provided and cared for me, as he always does.

No comments: