The kids put together, with my help, a Garage sale. Ariel was raising money for church camp this summer, and Gabe was raising money to buy himself a new game for his DS.
On Friday, as I thought we were all diligently getting ready for the sale, Ariel and Mikaela instead were having a little fun with Zechariah. He was spending a few minutes at the beauty parlor. This is one of the benefits or hardships, whichever way you want to look at it, of having a big sister. I personally think he looks beautiful! You may not be able to see it in the picture, but yes, he is wearing lip gloss too.
Saturday morning we all woke up early, with great excitement, to greet our customers at our garage sale. The kids helped me put the whole thing together. They collected their old toys they no longer played with, went through all the children's books we have, donated some of their old clothes and games. It was a sale full of kid things.
As we were preparing for the sale, each morning when it was prayer journal time we would pray for good weather, and that the right people would come. Ariel had a lot of money to earn, as Kidz camp cost $189. This past Sunday a deposit was due, which is why Ariel came up with the idea.
Gabriel got to have a bake sale. He wanted to purchase himself a new DS game, Mario vs. Donkey Kong. We made two different kinds of cookies, and bags of caramel popcorn. Since we were a little short on time, I baked the popcorn and one kind of cookie while he was at school on Friday, and then in the evening he was able to make the chocolate chip cookies. All his baked goods were delicious!
I believe garage sales are always a good idea; getting rid of old things that could turn into new treasures for someone else. Our garage sale turned into a God sale for us.
Since kids were the biggest target shoppers, all the items were $5 or less. We had nothing big to sell. Everything was small, and therefore, I was hoping to make $100 of Ariel's camp money. She was a little less optimistic and was hoping to make her $30 deposit, or maybe $50.
Several times during the sale, Ariel wanted to count out her money, and I wouldn't let her. I told her it would be more fun to wait until the very end. We had no idea how much we had sold. We were very busy, and didn't have more than 5 or 10 minutes in between people, and often we had 3 or 4 cars on the street.
I was blown away with how much we sold!!
God is so WOW! There is no way that it's a coincidence on the money that came in. God put it all together, and worked the details out perfectly. Ariel earned her $189, she earned the $5 for McDonald's on the drive home from camp, and she earned $15 spending money that she wanted. We then had $7 left over.
I spent $6.97 to buy the ingredients for Gabriel's cookies and popcorn.
How did God do that? He has to be the greatest mathematician ever! We had 10 cent items, 2 dollar items, etc.. How did he know how many items we would need to sell? And how did he know how much they would need to sell for?
I was completely in awe by the details of our sale. God could have easily given us enough money to cover everything, but to do it in the exact amount. I could not stop the tears from flowing. God loves and cares for us so much that it's overwhelming. We don't deserve His goodness, yet He gives it anyways.
This verse says it beautifully, "If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." Matthew 6:30-35
Life is so beautiful when God takes care of all the details. Why would we ever worry about anything, when we have such a big God on our side?
Not only did Ariel earn the exact amount that she was working towards, but Gabriel did also. His baked goods earned him $26. We were able to find the DS game he wanted, for the price he could afford. I try to teach my children to give to God first, and then spend what is leftover. Gabe was able to bring with him to church a ziploc he titled, "God's Money," and with his extra he had the exact amount to purchase his new DS game which should be arriving on Friday.
I am so grateful to God for His blessings. He is continually showering my family in ways that I never expect. This weekend, we didn't just have a garage sale, we had a God Sale.
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