Who can read the Mind of God?

Pastor James has been preaching a short series on prayer, appropriate with the National Day of Prayer coming up on Thursday.
One of the things he mentioned was how God answers prayer in unexpected ways.

I was reminded of the time the beast broke down on our way home from Knoxville. I know I've said that it happens so often that we nearly consider it traditional for the beast to require some form of mechanical help on road trips, even so, sitting beside the highway in Chattanooga in a dead beast is not fun. Especially when we are hours from home.

But we were not hours from God, nor were we hours from family.

I don't know about you, but traveling always brings out the prayer warrior in me.
Stan drives. I pray.
One of the boys drives. I pray even harder.

We had made the quick trip to TN for Pawpaw Alex's funeral. Stan was expected back at work the day after we headed home. On the edge of the road, I prayed for someone to stop to help us. Finally, an area lawman picked us up & took us to the nearby station where we were able to hang out for several hours in AIR CONDITIONING (PTL! - did I mention it was mid-day in July...) & use their phone to send out an SOS to Aunt Judy. She drove to the rescue. Stan rode with the tow truck driver back to Knox. & stashed the beast at my cousin Larry's auto repair place just down the street from Grandma's.

I remember asking God to please show me what His plan was as I worked the phone & yellow pages trying to find us a way home & kept hitting roadblocks: No one would rent us a vehicle one direction that would a.)hold our entire family nor b.)tow the beast home - both of which needed to happen. A flight home was way out of our budget plus would still leave the beast in TN.

The only course of action I could see was to get us home. God's plan was better: Stay in TN & fix the beast.

Here's what God did through this:
My sweet Grandma had company in her home for over a week after her husband's funeral, even on her birthday. We were blessed with some quality time with my extended family.


The beast got an engine transplant >
In TN, Cousin Larry provided a nearby place under a shade tree & the few tools Stan needed which were not in his toolbox (FL = sun & tracking down or purchasing special tools).
Cousin Kevin drove him across town to meet a truck carrying the donor engine (We had no vehicle aside from the beast at that time that would have carried an engine.) - plus FINDING that engine at an affordable $$ - woohoo!!!
Stan was able to focus on fixing the beast without having to do it around his work schedule so it took DAYS to fix rather than MONTHS, plus, Uncle Jim helped!

Aunt Elaine told Stan about the new family-friendly leave act which allowed him to use sick leave for family emergencies rather than just when he was sick himself. It was so new that his boss didn't know about it yet. Stan wound up using only the approved 4 days annual leave plus 4 days sick leave for this trip. Trust me, it was a blessing.

*******
Last night our well sputtered dirty water then pumped air. I'm praying for God's plan. It could be as simple as call the well guy & he will fix it, but with God, you just never know. :-)

How has God blessed you by answering your prayer in unexpected ways?