Stories of Faith # 2

Over the years God has provided us with innumerable things and finances. Some of those things have been cars, seven as of last count. The one that really stands out was our Ford Escort station wagon. At the time I was driving a Toyota Corolla that had an excess of 150,000 miles on it and was rusting out. Both a shock tower and the gas tank rusted out but the final thing that caused it to meet its demise was when the clutch went out. That left me without a car. After this happened I remember talking with my wife about what we should do. I tried to think through all my options but none of them looked promising as we didn't have any money to replace it. In the end we decided to pray for God's provision. Well the day after the Toyota died a member of our church walked into my office. She asked me what kind of car I wanted. I was shocked because we had not told anyone that our Toyota died. I described the general characteristics of a car I would like and she left saying she would pray specifically for this car. A few days later a man from my men's group learned that my car had died and asked me if I wanted his old pickup. I was surprised and tempted to accept his offer except it wasn't what I felt we needed. So we continued to wait. Then a couple of days after that I got a call from a car dealership asking if I was Kevin Richardson. I said I was and he told me that they had a Ford Escort station wagon that was one year old and had just 14,000 miles on it. He told me that it was paid for and all I needed to do, was to come and pick it up. So we pushed our old Toyota down the street and hopped in and started the engine and drove off. Since the clutch was gone we couldn't stop and had a somewhat adventurous drive to the dealership. For some reason they wanted our old car and we were glad to get rid of it. As the salesman was giving us the keys he asked me what church I attended. I told him and he said he might just check it out if everyone there was as friendly as the people who donated the car to me were. To this day I do not know who God prompted to be apart of the provision of that car but it was a great blessing. So when people ask me how I go about getting cars I tell them, I pray for them!

Shortly after becoming a Christian I developed certain convictions about dating and who I wanted to marry. I felt the woman I was to marry should have these three qualities: 1) she needed to be a fanatic for Jesus, 2) she had to be willing to go anywhere and do anything for the cause of Christ, and 3) she should be a woman of noble character. As I thought about all the marriageable women I knew at the time, I could only think of five that met those criteria. So I began to pursue each of them to discover if any of them might be "the one." One of them was Emily. As I got to know her I could see she was a woman who had all three of these qualities as well as many more. I also found her quite attractive! Before knowing for certain if I should ask her to marry me, I prayed and asked God to show me His will. A passage of scripture came to mind, Proverbs 31:10, "A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies."² Right then and there I knew Emily was the one. She was a woman of noble character and the one God had for me. Now after 24 years of marriage I can say with confidence, she is God's best for me and far better than I could have ever thought of or hoped for.