Five winks in one day

Being broke is no fun. Trusting God for your needs while you are broke isn’t as easy as some make it to be. But when He fills needs you haven’t even verbalized, it is incredible.

Just before Christmas 1994, a man offered me a job as Senior Editor on a new newspaper. The offer sounded attractive, although the base pay was poverty-level. If the paper made money, I could do well, but otherwise, not so much. He told me I needed a 35 MM camera, and that sort of killed the deal. I had none and no money to buy one.

The next morning, a Friday, I stood in the bathroom getting ready to go to Christian Businessman’s Committee (CBMC). I habitually do a lot of self-talk and that morning I said, “Oh man, I hope the dentist knows I at least tried to pay on my bill this year.” I owed more than $1,800, and had paid only $50 on the bill the entire year. This reality gave me a “hollow feeling” in my gut; very uncomfortable.

As I slipped my blue jacket on, I noticed the sleeves were frayed. I looked in the mirror and saw the image of a bum. Seriously. “Well, on the way home, I’ll stop at Goodwill and pick up a jacket,” I sighed.

During those days, I met with about a dozen men each Friday morning at a CBMC breakfast. My Grandfather Axel Olson had been a CBMC founder in the Twin Cities in the late 1930s. At CMBC, we talk, eat, study the Bible, and pray together. I said nothing about any of my financial needs.

“Dave, do you have a minute?” Leo asked after the breakfast. I followed him to his car. He reached in and grabbed up a red jacket. “Try it on,” he said. Yes, it fit perfectly. He reached into his car again, and pulled out a dress coat. “Try it on,” he said. And it fit perfectly.

I drove home with a huge smile on my face, and said, “Ain’t it just like God? I ask for one jacket, but He gives me a coat, too.”

Later that morning, I went to the mailbox. There I saw something that sent my spirit tumbling: a fat letter from the dentist. I didn’t have to open it to know what it was; but I did open it. I saw the writing in red marks across the top. I expected to read, “This bill is seriously past due. We will begin collection procedures immediately…or even sooner.”

Instead, the handwritten message said that the dentist wished my family and me a great Christmas. He wrote off the entire bill. More than $1,800! Tears flowed. I had not prayed about it. What could I have prayed? Certainly not that the dentist would forgive the bill. But God had worked in the dentist’s heart, and He and the doctor showed me mercy.

That evening, Rosanne, my children, I, and our friend Bill drove up White Bear Avenue, a busy Maplewood street. I wore my new red jacket, and certainly, had told them all about how God had given it to me – and about our dentist.

We came to a stoplight, and Bill slithered up between our seats (we had a van, and that itself is a story I’ll tell some day). “Hey,” Bill said as he pushed an object in my direction, “I have this extra 35 MM camera. Can you use it?”

I looked at Rosanne: one of those “can you believe this?” looks. I had never said a word to Bill about the newspaper job or the need for a camera.

On that Friday, I experienced five miracles of this type, but I can only recall these three: but it is enough to know God winked at me several times in that single day.