Our boys drink a particular kind of soy milk. It has to be chocolate, and it tastes best in individual-serving cartons.
That might sound like quite a bit of trouble, and I suppose it might be. But I typically order the milk online, and it arrives in two days.
Easy peasy.
But then the last time I tried to order it, it was on backorder and would take weeks to arrive. Is chocolate soy milk the equivalent of toilet paper? Are there people hoarding it? Who knows?
But I went to seven grocery stores over the weekend and couldn’t find any. I bought some disappointing alternatives to try to buy us some time. I figured we would just have to wait until the milk I had ordered finally landed on our porch.
I put it out of my mind and went to meet a few friends for lunch on the campus of the college where I work. I don’t often eat on campus, and I’m not sure I would have picked the first week of classes to try it. But there we were, waiting in line with a group of happy students who were so excited to be back. We chatted as we waited for our sandwiches and enjoyed the time together.
As we headed torward the cash register to pay for lunch, I glanced over toward the soda fountain, and I stopped cold. There, standing in a gleaming refrigerated case, were boxes and boxes of the soy milk I had been searching for everywhere.
I couldn’t believe my luck. This item I had been searching for was just sitting and waiting for me, ready to be discovered as part of a special lunch with colleagues on an otherwise ordinary workday.
It struck me that God often works in this way. He sees us looking for things and then slips exactly what we’ve been searching for into our lives when we don’t expect it. Somehow it’s that much more wonderful when we have almost given up on ever finding it.
I proudly carried the soy milk home with me, chilled it, and served it to our sons for dinner. I told them the story, and I mentioned how one of my friends insisted on treating them to their milk boxes.
It’s just a little something, not a miracle of miracles. But I love that kind of discovery that reminds me how God watches out for us, nudging us along the way, delighting as much as we do when we find something we’ve been looking for everywhere.
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