Last week I bought my breakfast at Panera Bread for a dollar and fifty cents. It wasn't much but I wasn't having the best day and it's still money...and when you're an adult money is...well...money.
Later that day a man on random handed me fifty cents as I mopped the floors and about an hour later someone left a dollar of change scattered on their table.
It was a small act.
It wasn't a lot.
But it was God's whisper..."I provide."

I struggle with seeing God...old news, right? But I'm sure a lot of you can relate. Some days you're on a spiritual high and the next, you feel like you're drowning.
One day I couldn't take it anymore.
I really couldn't.
And I just told God I needed to see Him. I just needed to know that He was there, because I didn't see Him. I told Him that if something didn't change soon, than I would go insane. I thought I really would. I remember leaning against the cold fridge, my hands covering my face as I shook with sobs. My sister watched me and I didn't want to know what she was thinking. I just knew I was breaking and I couldn't do it anymore.
I prayed a lot that week.
I just told God I couldn't do it anymore. I was at my breaking point and I knew it. Nothing I had dreamed of accomplishing at 20 was becoming accomplished. Everything I ever wanted to do seemed a figment of the imagination. I felt trapped behind brokenness.

And then I let go.
I really and truly let go. Not forever, it will be back -- we live in a sinful world -- but as I will have to every day until the world fades, I let it go.
I told God I couldn't do it anymore, and that's when things became real. Because guess what? I can't do it. I really can't. No one can.  No one can save me. Nothing could make me happy. I had tried and tried and I realized I could never be happy. I tried to be with my former job, determined it could make me happy. Long story short, I cried almost every evening I came home. I was hurt in personal ways.
I couldn't make a job go perfectly. I couldn't set off a writing career much less publish an article. I couldn't make a car appear in my drive or make my bank account go up. No matter how much I searched facebook marketplace for a car or submitted article upon article and edited upon edited my book...
I couldn't make anything happen.
I had no control. None whatsoever. I could make nothing happen, I couldn't force events.
Not alone.
I was like, "I'm doing this. I'm not listening to the voices. I'm not listening to people, not even those who think they know what's best for me. I'm done. I'm done with my voice too. I can't listen. I'm an adult but I can't. I'm taking advice from everyone -- this is just too overwhelming. I don't know what I'm supposed to do." I remember being like. "God...I'm going to do something crazy....I'm just going to dive in and do whatever you tell me. I'm not asking for advice -- not even my own. I'm just doing it."

So I applied to a job on a whim.
Bought a car.
Sent The Broken Prince to an editor and drained my bank account in the process (B U T it was worth it!).
I tried stuff I'd never tried before. I blocked out every single voice. I had to. Even my parents who love me, couldn't tell me what to do. I could lovingly listen...but still my journey is my own. Each person I would ask advice, had different ideas about what I should do. Their advice was lovingly said but still not what I needed. When I took each and every one into account, it resulted in head aches and a soul wandering mindlessly in chaos.

And after all of this, I could feel God saying that this time it was on me, this was my leap of faith...I had to go on only what I heard from Him and reap either the harvest on the consequences. I could not listen to the voices around me or in my head. I couldn't add up the odds. I could not longer think of what might happen in the future or what could have happened in the past. Neither mattered. None of it could.
There is a time in every person's life when it's just them and God, when the voices around you can not longer matter, when people will question you and say you're wrong and when you'll be alone in what you decide.

And it hasn't been all roses. I have a LOT of edits to look over, my car has a lot of issues, the long drive to work isn't always fun, but really I don't even know how I found some of things I did. Out of all the places I could have applied to, I applied to one of the best jobs I could have. Out of all the editors, I chose one who actually cares about my book and doesn't think the entire thing needs rewritten. And my car has issues (no heat is no fun), but it gets me where I need to go and it's reliable (most of the time).
But God provides.
When I stopped. When I let go. When I let go to every single voice (even my own), when it just became God...things happened.
The world is fallible. People ask why God makes bad things happen.
He doesn't.
He's given people choices so we won't become His robots, and in the process bad things happen because of our bad choices. So I can't rely on people.
And I can't rely on me.
Because I let me down.

So I'm taking the time to see God, in every moment, in everything, and how HE provides....not how I do.
 In the little tips, in sunsets and snugly gloves from the Dollar Tree. In freshly painted nails and free books in the mail. In changing fall leaves and smiles and laughter and family.
I'm seeing how He provides in the little things...and the big. It's not just about the cars but about the dollar and fifty cents you randomly get. It's about hugs and the songs He places in your hearts. I'm just taking the time to stop, to smile at the little girl gazing at you in Walmart, to hug my boss, to pray for the people who hurt me even though I can barely choke the words out. It's about thanking that Vietnam Veteran for his service, holding the door for two elderly ladies, paying for the person's food just because you can. It's about breathing in silence, getting off work early...about letting go of the voices, even your own, and taking the time to see God's.
It's about not being chained to your circumstance and seeing how He provides.
Because He does. Every time.
I'm scared sometimes. Sometimes I'm afraid of what will happen next. I'm looking around me at the world and I'm scared of what it will became twenty, thirty years from now.
But right now, right in this moment, I will stand firm and say what is true now and for all time. When you let go of everything else but Him, when every morning you allow Him to work...and even on the days you don't...

He

Provides.