Got Plans?

I have a story to share with you. My first Sunday as a house manager was a couple weeks ago. The plan was to go to church, stop at a park for lunch, go to a carnival hosted by the Anaheim Fire Dept (they gave us tickets), and then pick up pizza on the way home for dinner as a special treat. Quite an unusually busy day for the weekend, but one that everyone was looking forward to.

In order to prepare for this long day we had to cancel a Sunday evening pick-up. Every Sunday without fail a local restaurant in Brea donates all their leftover food at the end of their Sunday brunch. This food is a wonderful gift that is usually worth hundreds of dollars and provides meals and partial meals throughout the week. It is such a blessing to receive this! Our fridges and freezers are usually filled to the brim by the time Monday rolls around. Every once in awhile we are unable to make our usual pick-up due to events or sickness. This was that kind of situation and we had no problem cancelling the pick-up for the week.

Since it was my first Sunday working alone, and it was a busy one, I was feeling very particularly challenged to make everything run smoothly. 

Still getting the hang of driving the shelter's giant 15 passenger van we set off for church after a last minute run to the store for formula. Already I felt like the day was not going according to plan. :-) While at church it started to rain, really rain. It appeared our plan for a picnic in the park was no longer a good idea. Ok, no problem so we headed home instead. Now over lunch I had to decide whether or not to attend the carnival. The carnival was happening almost entirely outside and was happening rain or shine. The tickets we had been given were $20 a piece and I was loathe not to use them. However, our entire house had just recovered from a two week bout with colds and general sickness. I decided it would be best to stay home and let everyone rest and relax.
The plans for ordering a pizza fell through as well as the card we were going to use to pay for dinner wouldn't work for some reason...we found out later the wrong pin had been entered and it locked out the card until the next business day. By all appearances my first Sunday working was not turning out well. But wait, there's more! I decided to make pizza since we could at least do that. I pulled out the last of our lettuce which was not going to be enough for much of a salad and put 3 pizzas in the oven, just enough for the 15 of us.
Now let me just preface this by saying it is not often that I burn food. But dinner time came around and I opened the oven to take the pizzas out only to discover that two were undercooked and one, may it rest in peace, was burnt and hard as a rock. Great! That was it for me... not only did it rain, all the wonderful plans for the day were ruined, and we had cancelled the pickup from the restaurant, but now I didn't have enough food to put on the table for dinner. Ahhh!
Just then, and I mean just as I threw the burnt pizza into the trash, the doorbell rang. At the door was a middle-aged couple who asked if this was one of The Sheepfold houses. I am not at liberty to disclose that kind of info and when they saw my hesitation the woman cut in saying, "Nevermind, you don't have to answer that. Let's begin again. We have some food in our car. Could you use it?"
It turns out they were part of a Calvary Chapel church in a nearby city and had known Fran (Sheepfold's founder) some time ago. They knew that The Sheepfold had a shelter in Brea, but didn't know exactly where it was so they had been driving around to see if they could find it or remember where it was. They had a wedding at their church earlier that day and had several trays and bags of prepared food left over that they wanted to give to someone who could use it.
We sure used it! There were several trays of roasted chicken, tortillas, spanish rice, and a great big bag of fresh baby salad greens. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner and the mood of the whole house was transformed into gratitude for the little things God took care of.
As I turned out the lights and headed to bed that night a few things hit me. If the pin on the card had been entered properly we would have spent $40 on food that was not needed. If we had gone to the carnival we would not have been home when the couple knocked on our door to bless us with their gift. If we had made our normal restaurant pick-up instead of cancelling it we would not have had the room in our fridge to store the many pounds of leftover food that fed us for the next week.
If things had gone according to MY plan I would have missed the incredible experience of seeing God bless the socks off of the women and children in the house. I would have missed the opportunity for me to trust God with the details and the plans of seemingly insignificant day to day tasks. I would have missed the miracle and the awe that came from walking back into the kitchen and showing the mom's and kids an example of how much God loves them.
^"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:11-12