God works for the good of those who love him

Did you ever imagine that the Prom Closet would take a turn from prom dresses to wedding dresses?  Did you ever think we would end up with 12 wedding dresses hiding in our War Room?  Have you ever thought you knew what was going to happen and you were completely wrong?

Without knowing God’s purpose, last week I put a post on Facebook looking for brides in need and several of them responded.   I went to the Prom Closet to find the 5 or 6 wedding dresses I thought we had.  The more I looked, the more I found.

I stood there staring at the 12 wedding gowns and thought “How did they all got here? We do prom dresses NOT wedding dresses?”  In my mind, I needed to remind God what we do (I will never learn.)

As brides started to reach out, one in particular was able to meet last Friday.  Again, not knowing what God purpose was,  I pulled the wedding dresses out for her.

She looked at them and said " We are having a very small wedding with just a couple of people.  Those dresses are beautiful but they might be too much.”

I took her to our prom dresses with the possibility of finding a prom dress that could be turned into a wedding gown.  She started to pull several dresses of different colors. My thought was wedding dresses but God had something else in mind.   I had failed to ask our first question “What style do you like?”

In desperation, she said " I don't have anything to wear and we are getting married next weekend."

I remembered what Tammy always says and assured her "God brought you to us.  That means the dress is somewhere in here."

She started trying dress after dress then I noticed that the dresses she was pulling were navy blue.  Yet again I failed to ask our second most important question “What color do you like?” I started pulling navy dresses from the War Room with no avail and then I did something odd - I started bringing different color dresses.

Yet again in my mind "She is a bride.  She needs a bridal gown."

God was just not understanding that! So, I brought her the only short bridal gown we had and she loved it.  It was a little big so I asked her if she knew anyone who could alter it. Sadly, she said " My grandmother could sew but she passed away a couple of months ago.  It has been a hard year but I told God that September was my month.  You have no idea how much of a blessing this is for me.  My friends keep asking me if I have anything to wear."

Again, I assured her " We have the dress in here for your special day."

After several hours of looking and trying, I brought her a flowing, soft grey dress. she tried it on and it was perfect! As soon as she looked at herself in the mirror her face lit up.  I knew we had found her dress!

She turned to me and said "I love it!  This is my dress! My husband will be wearing a blue suit and I was hoping I will find something that matched with his and this is it!"

God was not done showing me His purpose.

As I was putting her dress in a bag along with shoes and jewelry I thought I should find a Bible for her.   I went to the War Room but couldn’t find one.  Sadly, I went back to packing her items when my eyes fell on a basket full of bags.   I took the bags out and to my surprise there was one Bible in there! A blue Bible that to match her husband's suit!

She took the Bible and said " I don't know what to say, I just happened to see your post and now here I am being blessed like this! You have no idea how I feel!"

I looked at the sweet girl and said "We think we know what we need but then God shows us in the middle of our storms how He is holding us.  He blesses us beyond what we think we need."

She said " I have to tell everyone in my church what God has done. I am part of the worship team so I can tell them what a blessing this is for me.  You have taken your time to be here with me and bless me."

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28

Now let’s go out and tell everyone that the Lord is good!

Blessings,

Aileen