Fleas!  Not just one or two or ten or even twenty. But thousands! They covered the kitchen floor like sand giving the floor a polka dot look. Only these polka dots moved. Hopping, jumping polka dots.

She looked through the open door with disbelief. Where had all these fleas come from? They hadn’t been there when she had left early that morning. How is this even possible?

No way could she stay there that night. She would have to go back to her mom’s house. But first she would need to get a few items.

She looked the other way – towards the living room. Are the fleas on the rug too? How was she going to get to her room to pick up a change of clothes and the other things she would need?

Taking a deep breath, she dashed across the living room, down the hall, and into her room. She grabbed an armful of clothes then ran into the bathroom for her hair brush, deodorant, toothbrush, and toothpaste. The rest could wait. Calling her dog to follow her, she ran back down the hallway, across the living room, and outside. After tossing her clothes into her car, she looked down at her legs. There were hundreds of fleas crawling and jumping around on the lower part of her jeans. She slapped at them trying to knock off as many as she could. She looked at her dog. Poor puppy – there’s got to be just as many crawling all over him. He’d need a bath first thing when they got back to her mom’s house. She got in her car and drove back across town.

“How can God do this to me?” she wailed as her mom helped her out of her jeans, which still had dozens of fleas happily hopping around. She had only just started following Him and didn’t really know what to expect, but knew this was not it.

“God didn’t do this,” her mom answered.

“They why did He allow it? He’s supposed to be taking care of me! First I can’t get a job, and now this! It’s like He’s playing some kind of joke on me. Well,  ha ha. This is NOT funny!”

“Calm down. It’ll be all right.  Why don’t you go away for a week or so while the exterminators bomb your place.”

“Where would I go? I don’t have any money. No job, remember?”

“Your dad is renting a small house while working out of town this month. Why don’t you ask him if you can stay with him?”

Of course he said yes, so she packed up the little she had and drove the 200 miles to her dad’s temporary place. All along the way, she cried and complained to God. Tears running down her face made driving hard, but she couldn’t seem to stop the flow. “I don’t know why You are allowing this,” she cried. “You promised to take care of all our needs. I can’t get a job, and now I don’t even have a home. Some care.” She felt neglected – like she wasn’t worth His attention much less His intervention. But if this was what following Him would be like, then so be it. After what He did when He saved her, after dying for her, she wouldn’t turn back. no matter how bad it got.

By the time she got to her dad’s place, she had begun to feel just a little better. A week of rest away from everything would be good for her.

The next day, the landlady, who happened to live next door, came over to meet her. As they talked, the lady explained how she had run a home day care in the little house but had hurt her back and was looking for someone who’d be willing to take over.

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing! All she had to do was move here – and she would have both a home and a job! Better than just a job – she would have her own business!

Later that night, she humbly closed her eyes and got quiet before God. “Thank you,” she finally managed to say. “I’m sorry for not trusting You. For complaining and accusing You of not taking care of me. And all along You had been arranging something far better than I could imagine. But fleas, God? Someday You’ll need to explain that to me. For now I’m just happy and grateful to be here, and awed at what You did for me, even when I was being a brat. You are amazing!”

She sat in the rehab room watching her dad pretend to be sleeping. After five hours, she was tired and bored. Other than a few breaks, when her dad had left for therapy and when he returned, and when her sister had called, she had sat in the not quite comfortable chair and played games on her iPad while he did his daily computer tasks then slept. Now it was dinner time and she was all gamed out. Not having anything else to do she decided to call God.

“Hey, God, are You there?”

“Yes, right here.”

“If I could see You, right here in the rehab, what would I see?”

“You would see a man, bending over your dad, whispering words of love, and waiting patiently for a response.

You would see a man, sitting next to you, covering you with strength and peace as we keep watch.

You would see a man, walking up and down the hallway, greeting the residents with encouraging words and gentle hugs.

You would see a man, standing near the employees, arm across their shoulders. providing support and wisdom as they need it.

And you would see that man doing all those things at the same time for I am not limited by time or space.”

Wow! What an amazing God!

Yet how many of those people know that He is doing all that, she thought. Especially those who don’t know Him yet? Hmmm… maybe that’s where she comes in. Maybe she should show them by doing  physically what God is doing spiritually. After all, that’s what Jesus did while He was on earth.

“Whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” John 5:20 NIV

  “It is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” John 14:10 NIV

So maybe, she thought, she should change her question a little.

“Hey, God! Will You show me what You are doing so I can do it too?”

And they both smiled.

“You’ll like this one,” her husband told her.

She wasn’t so sure. House hunting had turned out to be more time consuming and exhausting than she had expected. Between her job and her kids, she could barely squeeze in the time that looking at houses took. And, as much as she wanted to move out of their cramped trailer, she just wasn’t happy with the houses she had seen in their price range. So she had turned the bulk of the house hunting over to her husband. He and the realtor had already spent countless hours searching and touring houses – back when it all had to be done in person – and only involved her when they needed her opinion on the more promising ones.

“Actually, there are two houses, so if you don’t like the first one, we can go look at the second one,” her husband told her as they dropped off their kids with his mom and headed across town.

“Oh,” he added. “They are both a bit over our price range, but I think we can swing it.”

She turned to him. “How much over?”

“Don’t worry,” he responded. “It’s not that much.”

“How much?” she asked again.

“$150,000.”

“That’s not a little bit! We agreed we couldn’t go over $100,000!” She frowned. “This is a waste of time.”  What was he thinking? They were already counting pennies each month with the mortgage they were paying now. How in the world could they afford something that would be so much more?

“Let’s just go look at them for comparison. I really like them.”

Sure enough, the first house was so much better than any other house she had looked at. It had all the features she wanted, including a room upstairs that she could make into her private retreat. Then they went to look at the second house. As they pulled their minivan into the double driveway, she looked at the large two story brick front house and thought, “No way!”

Walking in the front door, she was blown away with the balcony overlooking the entryway and living room, and the large open floor plan. White walls were a welcome contrast to the dark paneling in their trailer, and there were large windows everywhere, including the floor to ceiling bay window in the living room.

“I love it,” she told her husband.”I could definitely be happy living here. But we can’t afford it.”

“We’ll see,” her husband said.

As they backed out of the driveway, she told him to stop for a minute so she could take a picture of it like she had done with the previous houses. She pushed the button on the door to roll down the window, stuck the camera out into the darkening winter air, snapped a picture, then pushed the button to raise the window. Only the window wouldn’t go up. She tried several times, then turned to her husband.

“It won’t go back up,” she said in frustration.

“Don’t worry. I’ll check it out. It’ll be too dark by the time we get home so I’ll look at it tomorrow.”

She worried anyway. All the way home, shivering as the cold air from the open window blew over her, she worried about how much it would cost to fix it, and where they would get that money.

“Don’t worry, he told her again. “God will provide. Besides, it will probably be fine in the morning.”

He was right. In the morning, the window worked fine.

“It’s a sign from God,” he said.

The following Sunday they asked some friends to pray with them about the house. Should they let it go and stick to their price range like she thought? Or should they buy this house and trust God to provide the mortgage payments like her husband thought?

During the prayer, one of the friends said they believed the minivan window being stuck open was a sign from God, that He was giving them an open door – in this case, and open window – to the house even though it was way more expensive than she thought they could afford. “Trust God,” the friend said.

“See, I told you,” her husband told her.

So feeling she was walking on and would probably end up drowning in deep water, she signed the papers along with her husband, and moved into the house of her dreams.

Month after month God did provide although she couldn’t figure out how. Looking at their finances on paper, there was no way they should be able to make the payments. Yet they always did. She felt like she was living in an ongoing miracle!

Over the years, she would frequently stop and look around at the house – this gift from Him – and her heart would fill with gratitude to the amazing God who not only gave her more than she could have imagined, but gave it to her in such an amazing way!

P.S. For the rest of its life, that minivan window never got stuck again.