My seventh grade English teacher told me I was too exuberant. I didn’t know what it meant, so she told me to look it up in the dictionary.
My thirteen-year-old self was embarrassed and I worked on toning my personality down. As an adult, I have learned how to read the room and the people I am with and adjust my exuberance accordingly.
However, this month, I am all out exuberant and I can’t tone it down because I am absolutely thrilled that we are dedicating the RGM House! I am so excited for all our friends to come see our beautiful home and celebrate God’s faithfulness with us!
I wrote about God’s provision in the November newsletter. The name Jehovah Jireh means “The Lord will Provide” in English. The article I read last fall says the Hebrew definition is “You see/experience all this need of mine and make provision for it.” When we look at the definition of provision, it means to prepare beforehand.
Let me tell you about how God prepared the RGM house beforehand!
The Board and I had looked at several different houses and properties. We had several that were very promising, but didn’t work out. In the fall of 2019, we found a great house in the Beauregard community. We decided to make an offer on it, knowing that we would spend the majority of our money in the bank on the down payment. We did all the due diligence that comes before making an offer.
We had a Board meeting in October to decide on the official offer. However, we had to cancel because two of our members had a family emergency. We rescheduled the meeting and called the realtor to say we were meeting on a Thursday and would like to meet with her on Friday at 11 am or later. Turns out she had a vacation scheduled and her plane was leaving at 11 am on Friday. She would be gone for two weeks.
We rescheduled for another Thursday in November. We had the appointment set with the realtor to make the official offer on Friday. On Tuesday of that week I got a text from one of the Board members wives, saying she has a friend that would like to talk to me about a house she has. I called the woman and we set up a time to meet the on Wednesday.
I am going to be honest with you, I was not that excited to throw another house in the mix. We had put a lot of time and effort into the Beauregard house. I simply wanted to know how much she was asking, where it was located, what it was zoned for. Our mutual schedules only allowed for about an hour and a half to meet before I had to be on the road to get to the Montgomery Women’s Facility for the small group I was co-leading. Something you need to understand about going into the state prison facilities is that you can’t be late. If you aren’t there at your scheduled time, then you don’t get in. I was a little stressed about going to this meeting because in my mind, we had a house, and I had to get to prison!
As you have heard time and time again, my husband Dave is pretty wise. He was getting on to me about being hesitant about this meeting. He said, “What if she wants to give you a house?” Of course, I laughed and said who gives someone a house?
God does!
God had made PROVISION BEFOREHAND for both RGM, and the owner of the home, who is now a friend and on our Board.
He knew what both of our needs were. An Auburn journalism student wrote about the house and told the story so beautifully.
Can’t wait to exuberantly celebrate with you!
