I guess I should start by explaining the name of this blog.
About a year and a half ago I was getting ready to move from my first real apartment in a city I grew up in with friends all around to a city where I only knew one other person. I was moving there for my job for a temporary 6 months position. I didn't know where I was going to live and I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to be living with a roommate.
I had been stressing about it and it wasn't helped by my mother (who is very loving and really just looking after her procrastinating "chick") who was asking almost constantly if I had found a place to live. I didn't want to look for a place to live and was hating that I was going to have to move to this city, even temporarily. That being said I WAS looking and WAS stressing not only about where to live but how I was going to get all my stuff there.
In my not so frequent bible time I really felt God was putting Matthew 6:26 on my Heart.
"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"(NIV)
At the time I thought it was referring to the job that I currently had which was very challenging for me but I slowly came to realize that God wanted me to rely on him to provide for me. Once I began affirming that verse in my life (really I kept on panicking and saying "I am more than a bird" "I am more than a bird" "I am more than a bird" over and over) God opened a wonderful place for me to live.
One of my coworkers lived in that city and had recently bought a new house with his Fiance and needed to sublet his apartment. The rent was double was I was willing to pay and told him that, although I would love to sublet, it was beyond what I was willing to pay for an apartment. A month went by and the offer was once again given but at half the price of what he was paying for the rent. It was decided that I would pay half the rent ($500) and he would pay the other half. Since he was on the lease I didn't have to worry about him flaking off on the rent and He trusted me enough that I didn't have to sign a sublet agreement because I was basically taking the apartment sight unseen and he didn't want to lock me into something I wasn't happy with. He really is one of the nicest people I have ever met.
The apartment was in a great neighborhood with neighbors that always looked out for each other. I went into the shop next to me and one of the really nice old men that owned the shop asked where my young man had been lately. The only time a guy had been to my apartment was 2 weeks ago and it was another coworker helping me move in a TV stand that I had just bought from Craigslist. It was walking distance to the local restaurants, half a block away from the gym, and a block away from the river.
The second God thing was the actual move out to the city. It is only about two hours away from where I was living at the time. I rented a small uhaul, got my best friend, current roommate, a guy friend, and his son to help me load it up with all my stuff. My guy friend was nice enough to drive the Uhaul out to the new city with me and his son riding shotgun and whatever the name of the middle seat is. My best friend was amazing and drove my car out to the new city. The only other girl I knew in that city met us at my new apartment, which I had only seen once when I went to get the keys a couple of weeks earlier, with her guy roommate. Within a couple of hours we had put everything into the new apartment and they had mostly arranged my furniture and my best friend had help me set up my bed so I at least had something to sleep on.
Within a few weeks I was attending a church I really enjoyed. Had a met a few friends and was starting a relationship with someone (which turned out not to work out but it was a good experience).
All of this would not have been possible if I had not trusted God. He gave me an apartment and moving plans within 4 weeks of praying and left me a month of relaxing knowing that he had taken care of me.
Frequently as I have been going through my life and people are telling me of things that they are going through all I can say to them is that they are"More than a bird".
This verse has become so real to my life that I hope to get a small silhouette of a sparrow in flight tattooed in white on my inner wrist (I already have a tattoo of the Chi Rho on my foot).
