Last Wednesday, Jessie had received a special Valentine’s Day gift from a dear friend from church, Mrs. T.

After quickly pulling the tissue paper from the bag Jessie discovered candy and a special hot pink Hello Kitty wallet with lots of pockets.  After some prompting by Mrs. T, Jessie opened the wallet and discovered a dollar bill.  My precious girl was elated!

When we got home that afternoon, she started rummaging through our house looking for lost pennies to add to her new gift and would periodically come racing over to me to reveal how she had found yet another place to put the money in her billfold.  She was clearly overjoyed by her new wallet.

It was the very next day that I lost my wallet. 

When I discovered that it wasn’t on the ottoman where I’d expected it would be, I began rushing around the house in a flurry, “Oh my gosh!  Oh my gosh!  No!  No!  I can’t believe I’ve lost my wallet!  No!  I can’t believe this!  This is awful!  What are we going to do?  We’ll have no money!”  I was crying.  I was gasping.  I was panic-stricken and my turmoil was desperately evident.

Finding it difficult to see her mom so disturbed, Jessie started to cry too.

“I’m sorry, sweetie.  I don’t want to upset you, but this is a really big deal for mommy.  I’m really concerned,” I said, unsuccessfully trying to calm myself down.  I continued my anxious search while Jessie disappeared upstairs.

A few moments later, my sweet girl came down the stairs, still crying, with her arm extended to me and her hot pink Hello Kitty wallet in hand, “Here mommy.  You can have my wallet.  You can have my money,” she said with anguish.  “It will be okay, mommy.  You can have mine and it will be okay.”  She was desperate to console me, desperate to make it all better.

Feeling so broken, yet so moved, I crumpled onto the couch, gripped by the sensitivity and generosity of my girl as she tried to place her wallet in my hand.  Tears pouring from both our faces, I responded, “Oh, Jessie.  I don’t even know what to say.  You are so sweet and so generous.  But I want you to keep your wallet.  We will find a way to make things work.  Mrs. T. gave you this wallet as a special gift and I really want you to keep it, okay?”

“But I really want you to have it, mommy,” she naively asserted again, unaware of the vast difference between her economy and ours.

I just held her.  I held her tightly in my arms, incredibly touched by her compassion, and hoping to bring comfort for us both.  We rocked back and forth as I kissed the top of her head, “I love you, Jess.  I love you so much!”  Whispering through my cries, “We’re going to be okay.”

As the fears of my lost wallet continued to race through my mind, my pain prohibited me from seeing an important insight – what felt like a huge amount of money to me, in God’s economy was like Jessie’s single dollar.  I was begging a God with boundless resources to help me.  I was crying out to a God in whom all things are subject to his authority. And as my friend Elizabeth reminded me, God didn’t even need my wallet to demonstrate his faithful provision.

So after some convincing, Jessie kept her dollar…and God graciously provided mine.

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Where has God recently provided for you?