On January 30th, 2012 I was in the shower praising God when I became overwhelmed with tears. I kept saying “How dare they mock you God”, over and over again.

A little context: during the month of January our church was praying for a van so we could go to the dream conference in Phoenix Arizona in February (11th-13th). It’s not like we couldn’t rent a van: because we could. But we felt strongly that God would use this for His glory – so we continued to pray.

trees
  • facebook
  • Pinterest

You can view the details of this receipt by clicking on it.
  • facebook
  • Pinterest

You can view the details of this receipt by clicking on it.

IMG_0378
  • facebook
  • Pinterest
God told me to “Go buy a tree.” – which was accompanied by a green pine tree air-freshener like you find in a car.

Between tears I said out loud, “yeah right, go buy a tree”…

To which God again responded with the picture of a tree in my mind and “Go buy a tree.”

“Really God?”

and then He said “Go to the auto parts store on your way to work and buy a tree.”

Anyone who knows me knows that me and auto parts stores do not mix. I stopped at the auto parts store because He told me to specifically, and I realized in hindsight, stopping over at a store I normally go to would seem convenient. I arrived at the O’Reilly auto parts store about fifteen minutes after they opened and bought the three-pack of trees you can see in the photo. I am including a scan of the receipt just to prove it – not like I need to prove it, it’s for those who don’t want to believe, or need to have evidence. I did not have an impulse to buy these air fresheners… I was told to do it, so I did.

I received a text around 10:30 the same day stating that around 1:00 PM we would be picking up the van which was just donated. It still chokes me up. God is so good.

On the way back from Phoenix, the van broke. It was a bad battery which failed twice. The second failure was at the bottom of the Ramsey-weeks cutoff on Highway 50 out past Dayton Nevada. We were jump-started and escorted back to town by an off-duty NHP.

I asked God about the event because it had been such an emotional time of prayer leading up to the conference, especially waiting on the van.

God told me “The van had to break”.

“What do you mean”, I asked God?

“The van had to break, because, the faith that got you to the conference is not big enough for what is about to happen”…