God of the Eleventh Hour

Another great story about thanking God, waiting for the miracle and how God blesses children when they honour their parents....


I think I've explained that our children are in Bible Quizzing.  It's a Bible memory program that takes memorization to a whole new level.  It is absolutely mind boggling what these children are accomplishing in a very short period of time.  They love it so much (the competition, the social aspect, the tournaments, etc.) that it often gets them in trouble now as memorization gets seriously in the way of their school work.




They have about 4 tournaments a year that are in the area.  They live for these tournaments!  Then, there is a much bigger tournament called the Winter Nationals that takes place in New York.  Of course our kids wanted to go, and we did look into it in spite of that fact we had said no holidays, etc.  We figured if it was really cheap, perhaps we could justify it some way, but it turns out, it was quite expensive.  We had to say no.  The kids were, of course, disappointed. 




Everyone else on their teams were up in the air about going and so when we decided not to go, they also all said no - no one particularly had their heart set on it except our kids, one in particular.  My oldest son has been doing particularly well, scoring in the top 2 or 3 out of all the kids in the league regularly.  His team scores in the top 3 regularly.  They're good!  He's good!  So he had been really looking forward to the new competition in the States as apparently is it also on a whole new level.  The Americans apparently take it very seriously.




Then, things started to get worse.  All sorts of people started changing their minds!  They started emailing us telling us they were going!  My son wasn't happy about this!  It was fine if no one else was going, but now suddenly things were turning around.  After one practice in particular where everyone had talked about it all evening, he came home, sounding just like his mom gets, super discouraged.  I told him, "If God wants you to go, he'll make a way.  In the meantime, you just have to wait, surrender your rights to go, and pray."  He admitted his great disappointment, but said it out loud, "I will surrender my rights."  I felt badly and quite honestly didn't think a way could be opened up as the only way it would work was if someone offered to pay for our whole family to go and I couldn't see that happening.  We also weren't willing to let him go with just any guy from the league - we're still pretty careful who are kids are with.  RM couldn't afford the time away to take him on his own.




But things got worse again before it got better.  We had a tournament on the weekend and my son did really well again, perfect score all day and only one error.  That's when things got really bad - multiple students, coaches, Dads, Moms.....everyone it seemed to him, came up to him and said, "You've got to go to the Nationals!  Be on our team!  Why aren't you going????"  Each time he had to say, "Not this year.  It's too expensive."  It was starting to bug RM, too, as people just wouldn't lay off!  Again, he came home after a great day, but was down.  I didn't know, but he knew, it was the last day a name could be entered to be in the Nationals.  His name had not been entered.


He told me later he was even more disappointed because he really thought God was going to come through since he'd surrendered his rights!   To him it seemed like God wasn't coming through on his end of the deal.




Then the phone rang Monday morning.  "It's Mrs. B, Mom!"  I wondered why she was calling.  I don't even know her and have never spoken to her in my life.  She introduced herself as the Mom of another boy from the league who really wanted her to call me to find out if my son would be on their team as they had one more spot.  I explained to her why we were saying no and then she said, "I'll explain my suggestion."  She went on to say that she and her family were going down with a few other solid guys we knew.  She was offering to take our son in their vehicle and because they were driving down anyway, they would cover gas and hotel.  All our son would have to cover was the fee to get into the tournament which was quite small and he would cover that himself.  This was huge!  I was near tears again!  I quickly tried to call RM to run all this past him.  The kids knew something was up.  I dried my tears and pretended it was nothing and waited to hear back from RM.


When I finally could explain the whole thing to him, he was completely on board and also thought it was great.




We called all the kids together and told them the good news - #2 (our son) was going to the Winternationals!  Everyone, especially #2, was super excited!


So, I feel a miracle happened for our son.  He really honoured us by not complaining, fussing, or grumbling when we first had to explain we weren't going.  The Bible promises when you honour your parents it will go well with you in the land.  I told him that.  This miracle is a direct result of his honouring us.  I wanted him to know that God was blessing him.  I also explained how God is often the God of the eleventh hour, meaning he often comes through when there is no other hope.  This way he gets all the glory as there was no way we could have orchestrated this on our own.  It was the final day to get names into the tournament.   So great.


I share this story because once again I see how God is taking care of my desires for my children even when there is no money to spare.  He prompted this family to call us and the rest is history.  I'm so happy for him (oh, and down another pound!  Yeah!)