"Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live."

                                                                         -Jackie Windspear

Me and Jabez

By Angela Daugherty

Several years ago, I was going through a particularly difficult time in my life. In the space of a year, I had: separated from my husband, given birth to my fifth child and embarked upon a search for new housing for my family. It was an extremely stressful time. In addition to that, I was filled with anger and bitterness at my situation.

Shortly before embarking on my housing search, I wrote out a list of what I was looking for. I hung it on the wall over my computer where I would see it many times throughout each day.

None of the homes I looked at had even come close to fulfilling the items on my list.  I continued to look. My mother also began to help in my search.

One day she came over and gave me a small book called The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson. It was a slender book, easily read in one sitting.

It was based on the prayer of Jabez, a small passage from 1 Chronicles. It reads:

Now Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from harm that I may not cause pain!”  And God granted what he requested.

                                                                     1 Chronicles 4:9-10

I wrote out the prayer and hung it in the kitchen up on one of the cabinet doors where I would see it every time I went into the kitchen. I prayed it several times throughout each day.

It didn’t take long for things to start happening. It began with a trip to our hairdresser. I had been going to the same stylist for more than 20 years. We always went for haircuts on Friday nights. On our once-a-month Friday evening haircut excursion,  I usually treated us to a meal out at Taco Bell. It was the only time we ate out like that. It had become part of our monthly routine-haircuts and then Taco Bell.

On this particular evening, I didn’t have any extra money for Taco Bell. The kids had been talking about going out for dinner all afternoon and I didn’t say anything. I was trying to figure out a way to swing dinner. I hadn’t come up with a plan.

Sitting in the chair getting my haircut, my long time friend and hairdresser Debra began

Telling me about a other one of her clients.

“The last time you were here with the kids, right before Christmas, as you were leaving, Ruth was coming in. She saw and commented to me how well behaved they all were. She asked about you. She comes in every week. The week after she saw you, when she was in getting her hair done, she was talking to one of my other customers. Ruth told Susan about you. She was just in here yesterday. When she came in, she gave me this bag of hats and gloves for the kids. She was out shopping with her husband and said to him,” You know, kids can never have too many hats and gloves. I’m going to buy some for those kids.”

Just then, Jack, Debra’s husband walked over and put a $20.00 in my hand. “Ruth left this for you. She said you should treat yourselves to dinner.”

I stared in amazement at the bag of hats and gloves and the money.

That was just the beginning of my amazing faith journey. As I continue on this path and my relationship with God grows and deepens, I am led in directions and to people that I could never have imagined on my own. The one thing I know for sure is that God works miracles through people and even when I don’t have a solution for a problem, He does. And His solution is a million times better than anything I could ever imagine. God is good and He is good ALL the time.