On December 20th, I experienced a true “appearance of God”. I’ve always believed in a God, but never knew what it meant to know God. I’ve been walking with a discipleship group of a few guys for some months now and am becoming more knowledgeable of who God is and isn’t. Before this day, I still had my struggles in attaching Jesus to God.
While I was working, almost done for the day, I got a call from my wife with a confused/excited tone in her voice. She explained to me that the parents of one of the kids she babysits gave her a Christmas card when they picked up their child. Not thinking much of it, she thanked them, and got back to the other kids she cares for. A few moments later, she decided to open the card and read it and saw there was money in the card. She said she figured it was an early payment for looking after their son. After counting it, she then realized they had made a mistake, because they had left way more than what was due for the week, $500 more! So she called the parents to let them know about the mistake or to find out if maybe they were pre-paying for a few extra weeks. To her surprise, they told her there was no mistake and that the extra money was her Christmas bonus for taking great care of their son everyday! She told me how this was a huge blessing and she was very appreciative that they would do this.
For a few hours, I pondered why anyone would do such a generous thing. Especially with Christmas just a few days away. Surely they could use it for their family... right? Once I finally got home around 6:30pm, I went to my bedroom to I guess try to figure this all out. Confused and not getting anywhere, I began speaking to God. I asked him if this was Him blessing us and revealing Himself to me.
Rushing to my own conclusions, I brushed it off and said no, no, no. It’s all because my wife is so helpful and has such a huge heart for helping others. It was all because of her, and nothing I do would ever contribute to someone seeing in us a reason to do such a nice thing. JUST AS I SAID THIS TO HIM, there was a knock at the door. I went to see who could be at the door at this time. It was a neighbor from a few houses down in the neighborhood who we know. She was holding a frozen turkey in one hand and a frozen chicken in the other. She handed both to me and said "Merry Christmas" and walked away. I was stunned. We had no dinner plans that night so it was perfect timing.
Just then, I felt a strong feeling, as if God was right there looking at me saying, “Wake up, this is all me!” It couldn’t have been more clear. At that moment I realized, what more am I looking for as proof that Jesus is real and that He’s taking care of not just us, but taking care of and providing for me?
-Michael Eberra