This is not for you

I had a great shopping trip planned.  No, not to Madison Avenue in New York City.  I had Kohls Cash!

Kohls is a local department store.  When you spend a certain amount, you receive a coupon for $5 or $10…to get you to come back to spend even more, of course.  I had a $5 coupon and I needed some fleece-lined tights.  It’s cold here!  I had worn my new cute sweater dress the day before and realized I needed them.

This is not for you

So, my $5 coupon and I headed to Kohls.  I walked into the store and had to go through the Men’s department to get to Women’s.  Man, they pack the racks into that section.  It’s a maze!  I finally made it to the women’s section but couldn’t find the tights anywhere (even though I had looked online and the website said they had them).  I asked the nearest staff member, she walked me to a different department, and then she called someone else to help.  Sadly, they were all sold out. 

There I was with a $5 coupon about to expire, no tights in sight, and preparing to navigate the Men’s department again to get out of the store.  So, I stopped and thought, “OK God, I’m going back to the men’s clothes.  Show me what I should buy.”  Did I mention that, while I went in for tights, I had had a nagging thought that I really should use the money for someone else, like maybe to buy socks to give away to the homeless shelter at our church?

The socks ended up being $20-30, however.  That didn’t seem like a good use of money so I kept looking.  I found winter outdoor clothing – and Kohls was running a half-price sale on all of it! 

I began maneuvering the maze.  First step, where’s a $20 item?  Ok, I found a stocking cap for $20 so at half-price, it cost $5 with my $5 coupon.  With the 20% off coupon I also had, the hat cost $4!

And in that moment, I heard, “This is not for you.”  The $5 coupon that had been given to me wasn’t actually for me.  It allowed me to buy warm winter clothing in our harsh early winter for someone who really did need it.

Hope in front of me

I had another $20 coupon coming a few days later and decided to get the tights with that…then I realized, no, I can actually afford the $7 for them.  God had blessed me with sales and free “cash” and 20% off coupons recently but none of it was for me.  God intended it for me to use to bless someone else. 

There’s hope in front of me

There’s a light, I still see it

There’s a hand still holding me

Even when I don’t believe it

Danny Gokey, “Hope in Front of Me”

Going back to Kohls a few days later, I bought men’s socks and winter gloves with the next coupon.  After coming across an unused work bag of mine, I put the socks, gloves, and hat in it.  I also printed the full lyrics from a song called “Hope in Front of Me” and added that to the bag. 

I know I am held by God.  I have hope – not the wishing on a star kind of hope, but the kind of hope talked about in the Bible: confident expectation in God and His promises.  As I packed the bag, I thought, “God, help me give your hope to someone who needs it.”

A woman I knew worked at a church’s service organization for economically challenged individuals in their part of the city.  I asked her to give the bag to the pastor at that church and have her select a man who needed it.  I wanted that man to know that God was providing for him, even if he didn’t believe it.   I wanted to share something that man needed to know…hear…feel.

Confusion and confidence

I wrote last week about thinking that what I was doing was a blessing for someone else only to find a blessing in it for me.  Then there are the times when I am sure the blessing is meant for me (aka, I deserve this, darn it!) but it suddenly spins around and I see it isn’t for me after all.  God is just passing it through me as a way to get it to the actual intended recipient.  It’s all so confusing sometimes.

You may be wondering what happened to the man who received those items.  It would make an incredible post to tell you how he’s doing today, but I don’t know.  Oh, how I wish I knew how my own story will turn out, to have the assurance of a happy ending.  But I don’t have that either.  I don’t know my own ending any more than I know that man’s.  But I know God blessed us both by letting us know He’s there.  And I am confidently expecting that He will keep showing up until the end of the story. 

I will sing a song of hope, sing along

God of heaven come down, heaven come down

Just to know that You are near is enough

God of heaven come down, heaven come down

Robby Seay Band, “Song Of Hope (Heaven Come Down)“