Last week I, for the bazillionth time, regretted so ruthlessly ridding ourselves of stuff during our big move from the house where we'd lived nearly 15 years. 

Always the penny-pincher, I didn't want to pay the movers a single cent more than necessary, and in hindsight, it was practically as though I flung stuff out the windows in a fevered frenzy. I also let go of things so to declare my unattachment to stuff, to illustrate to myself, (and everyone else), that I'm no hoarder, no, not me. 

Hmmm.

So last week I felt especially feeling sorry that I'd released my Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins book collections and especially Emily's Runaway Imagination (what was I thinking?). As well as all except my favorite two of the Little House series. My ruthless reasoning had been that I could always check-out these books from any library, and alas, often that's true (though not always). 

But sometimes? I just must have an emergency re-read of Ramona The Brave, you know?

And one day when I was first married, an old friend of my family dropped by with a fun box of old kitchen items, one of them, a cookbook from the 1960's, one which I used avidly for nearly 30 years. But before The Big Move, it was one of the cookbooks I tore much-used recipes from, placed them in plastic sleeves in a binder, then tossed the rest away.

And well, I regretted that, also.

Fast-forward to this past weekend. There Tom and I were, driving along in the middle of cornfields after having visited another disappointing swap meet created mostly for men. Oh, the acres of car parts, car books, tools and greasy-looking stuff! Fortunately I came prepared with my book bag and, after a quick perusal, I sat at a picnic table with a donut and read.

Anyway, Tom, spur-of-the-moment-like, decided to take a different route home and that's when we found that free desk for our kitchen I showed you. But before that, I told Tom, "After that dreadful swap meet, I have a gigantic urge to look through boxes of books." 

And then?  We spied a yard sale ahead. We stopped, got out, and guess what they had? Two huge boxes of books! And oh, guess which books I discovered?

Three Ramona Quimby books.
Two Henry Huggins books.
The Emily's Runaway Imagination book.
Two Little House on the Prairie books.
And that cookbook from the 1960's.

Oh wow. Does that give you chills, or what?

Now, I left the cookbook there because it is bulky and takes up much room. But I stood there and smiled over it. Became teary-eyed. Oh my, at nearly 50 years old, it looked like shiny new. I dragged Tom over there and told him I'd just thought about this cookbook days before then I showed him all my other books, just 25 cents each, and told him, too, that dear, sweet God did this for me. 

He led us here to that very yard sale.

God is with me all the time, I know that. I couldn't survive one day if He wasn't. But sometimes, oh! He enjoys making Himself so very, very obvious.


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May my expectations always be good ones, not bad.


" ...Be it done unto you even as you have believed..." .... Matthew 8:13


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