God's Appointments

As with many of these “blog” subjects, this one struck me forcefully all at once. It was yesterday afternoon.

I was out of Orange Gatorade (my reqular liquid snack), and decided I’d better go out to get some. I can’t just find them anywhere, since the small “eight at a time” bottles are not available at all stores. I’ve noticed that the local K-Mart occasionally has them; sometimes Wal-Mart, but no longer Kroger. In fact, I don’t think Kroger has ANY Gatorade.

Since it was just after 5:00 on Sunday afternoon, I would stop by the Library JUST before it closed, since I was out of books. I had just finished the “Mitford Series”.

Sure enough, it was closed. The sign said closed at 6:00 on Saturday, and 5:00 Sunday. Previously on a Sunday late afternoon, I had wanted to go to the Library, but feared it might be closed. I called, and sure enough, it was. Yesterday, I hadn’t remembered that the Sunday closing was an hour earlier than Saturday.

Well, my car needed washing, so I headed for the BP across from the Mall. While there, I remembered that I had ordered a Prescription re-fill at CVS, so I went there also - just across the street.

Coming out of CVS, I realized that I had left the Grand Court before supper, and now I was hungry.

Taco Bell is just down Upper Valley Pike from CVS, so I went there for a couple tacos. Hadn’t had any of them for awhile, and they were tasty.

Coming out of there, I remembered that my car probably needed some oil. So, since Speedway was just a couple doors from Taco Bell, I went in there to buy a couple quarts of 10W30. On the door of Speedway was a sign indicating that they now had an ATM from Chase Bank.

Whoa!

That’s MY bank, and I hadn’t found any Chase Banks OR ATM’s in Springfield since I arrived the end of February. If I wanted cash from an ATM, I had to use one of another bank; pay them $4 or $5, plus, when the transaction arrived at Chase, my account was debited another four or five dollars.

Glory be!

I said aloud - in the store - “Oh……..Speedway has an ATM owned by Chase Bank. Praise the Lord. I’ll save nearly ten bucks this week on that.” (I’m going to Florida on Thursday (two days from now) to visit my granddaughter Kelly and her family, and I’ll need cash.)

Now, as far as I know there has NOT been another Chase outlet in all of Clark or Champaign County. In fact, when I moved here the end of February, I had gotten from my Bank in Indiana, a complete list of ALL of the Chase Banks in Ohio. There are some in Dayton and Huber Heights, but I’ve not been to either of those communities since I moved here.

This may seem a very insignificant thing to you, but to me, it was another of what David Mains used to call “A God moment.”

How is that?

Well, I had not been in a Speedway store once since I moved back to Springfield. I had been getting a minimal amount of cash from K Mart or Wal Mart, on a “cash back” basis, from my Debit Card. But, this time, for my trip to Florida, I would need maybe $400. You can’t get that much “cash back” - anywhere.

So, on Wednesday (Pay Day for us Social Security types), I’m going to Speedway, put my Cash Card in the Chase ATM, and draw out $400 (the normal daily limit on ATM’s is $200), before leaving for Port Columbus on Thursday to fly to Melbourne FL. No “cash advance fee”, nor “service charge” incurred.

Now, this may seem to be a “little thing” to you, but to me, it’s another indication of God “going before” us, to provide, in a way not always seen.

“A God Moment”. Or, one of “God’s Appointments”.

Who would have thought when I left home yesterday, that all of these “coincidences” (as some would say) would happen?

John 10:4 Jesus said, “And when He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen events like this one. I’ll try to remember some. I’ve experienced more of these occasions, just like this one.

Oh…..when I got back in my local area, I went into the K Mart and bought my usual SMALL eight bottle package of Orange Gatorade - and some extra clothes for my trip.

Another:

We lived in Chicago for eleven years.

We went there from the town of Mechanicsburg, with 1,800 souls. We knew everybody, where everybody lived and how to get anywhere anyone could have mentioned.

Arriving in Chicago, as strange as it may seem, we didn’t know anybody; didn’t know where anything was; didn’t know the names of the stores. We lived near Diversey - 2800 north, and 4 blocks from the Lincoln Avenue shopping area, at the corner of Ashland -1600 west, and Belmont - 3200 north.

We learned that you could judge distance by checking the street corners near you. In Chicago, eight blocks either way constituted one mile. An interesting thing about this was that each “block” included two streets. They were numbered in the hundreds. Each hundred numbers constituted one block.

So, since our corner was Diversey at 2800 north, and Belmont was at 3200 north, it was just four blocks, or one half mile away - plus, of course, the distance from 2728 on Racine, to Diversey at 2800. Remember, though, the next street was in the same block as the previous one.

The first year, we spent much of our time riding the Elevated Train, or “El” in Chicago. We got on at Diversey, then rode north all the way to Howard Street in Evanston. From there, we’d go down the stairs, then come up on the other side (never leaving the system), and get on the train again to head south - all the way to Jackson Park on the south side - not far from the Museum of Science and Industry.

We’d repeat there what we did at Howard Street, by going down then up the other side, to take the El again going north.

We took it to Diversey, then got off and went home. All for a dime apiece. (This was, after all, 1954.)

In addition, since we had a car, we drove around town, seeing the sights, and noting where things were.

Driving west on Lawrence Avenue, we ran across the Olson Rug Company. Later, we needed to know where that was.

Near the same corner was Sears Roebuck, where we later went to buy school clothes for the boys later on.

So many times, we’d be told something we had to go to, and lo and behold, we had OFTEN already been by that before.

God’s Appointments.

Then, there’s the time already mentioned earlier when I left The Grand Court in the morning to try to find a Steno Chair for my computer. The car Jim lent to me had been running fine the day before, but this particular morning, when I came out of Wal Mart to start the car, NOT ONE SOUND. The car would NOT turn over, as we say.

I won’t repeat the whole story here, but suffice it to say, when I left home that morning, I went to the ATM and withdrew $200 from my checking account, using my Debit Cash Card. I hadn’t been doing that. In fact, I seldom needed that much cash. If I wanted to buy something, I just used the Cash Card and purchased it. If I needed a little extra cash, I could get up to $50 at K Mart, and $100 at Wal Mart, as “Cash Back”.

But, that day, I just FELT I needed to get $200 in cash.

You may remember that the Wal Mart mechanic could not get the car started - two different times. And said I had “starter” problems - probably a new one.

The upshot was that I had to call a Tow Truck - $45 cash - no Credit Card facilities in the wrecker. The Auto Mechanic was just starting at this location and hadn’t set up for Credit Cards yet. $135 cash to fix the car - including a new battery.

Consider - Where would I have been if, first of all, this had happened at 9PM the precious evening? How would I have paid the tow truck driver, or, especially, the mechanic, if I hadn’t “just casually” withdrawn $200 from my Checking Account just after leaving home?

A “God Moment”, or a “God Appointment”.

In the last several years, I’ve experienced almost identical “happenings” that occurred because “God was there”!

Praise the Lord!