Some lucky winner in South Carolina just won the single winning Powerball lottery ticket valued at 1.537 billion dollars. I almost never play the lottery because I believe, when played on a regular basis, it’s a waste of money seeing that statistically I have a better chance of being killed by a vending machine than winning one of the major payouts. But when the lottery gets “1.6 billion dollars big”, I can’t resist purchasing a $2 ticket for a chance to dream about what it would be like to win. I spend a few nights not knowing if my ticket is the winner, and in the meantime I have some fun imagining what I would do in the fat chance that it was. I dream about having a house on the ocean, limitless learning and educational options, travel, charity, the ability to relieve financial burdens of family and friends, and just the endless opportunities and possibilities that that kind of money would bring. But alas, I was not the big ticket winner this time. However, all of the recent hype about the lottery did have me thinking about a time in my life when I scratched and won, not everything I wanted, but just exactly what I needed at the time.
I was about 15 or 16 years old and a sophomore in high school. My family’s financial situation was pretty much the same as it had always been; not much money to go around for the things we needed, and definitely not enough to go towards anything extra, so I found myself praying as I walked home from school on this blustery early December day. I was frustrated and feeling burdened by the all too familiar circumstance of wanting to participate in activities, but not having the money to do so. I was tired of feeling like a charity case, tired of trying to scrounge up money for things, tired of being poor really. So I poured all of this out of my heart to God as I walked down the sidewalk that lead to our second story apartment situated halfway down the street.
The previous day at church I had read in the announcements that the deposit to attend snowcamp with the youthgroup would be $45 and was due the next week if we wanted to attend the camp in January. I was used to the church pitching in for me, but I hoped to at least have the deposit to contribute. Also due was the $15 per person ticket price to attend the church’s annual Christmas Banquet. It might as well have been $150 because I couldn’t come up with any of it. I was still trying to figure out what I could do about it all as I climbed the front steps of the house to grab the mail before I headed upstairs.
The family who lived downstairs was away visiting with relatives on the Cape and had asked me to collect their mail for them as well, so I grabbed the contents of both boxes and retreated from the cold to our apartment. I noticed we had gotten the blue ValPac envelope in our mail which contained coupons for community stores and businesses. This only mattered because sometimes there were free vouchers for a $1 lottery ticket inside. While standing over the heating vent to bring feeling back to my face and hands, I called my neighbor downstairs on her cell phone to say hi and tell her about the various pieces of mail they had received. She said I could throw away their ValPac and a few other pieces of mail. Before I ditched it, I opened it up and ruffled through the coupons, happy to discover that the lottery voucher had been included that month. Now I had two!
I was technically too young to play the lottery, but I had found that the convenience store down the street had let me get a ticket with the vouchers before, so I figured I would go to the same place and hope for the best. As I walked, I prayed and asked God to help, promising him that if I won anything, anything at all, I would use it towards the deposits I needed. After “purchasing” my two free tickets I quickly walked home, with a nervous excitement about the possibility that something big could happen with these tickets in my pocket. I sat at the dining room table feeling a little like Charlie Bucket with his Wonka Bars. Penny in hand, I scratched the first card and then the second. Brushing the gray dust from the surface or the cards, I sat staring in awe at the tickets on the table in front of me, first checking then double-checking all the numbers. It took a moment to sink in. I had consecutively won first $45, then $15 on the two tickets that lay before me. Chills ran up and down my arms as I sat there in astonishment. I still get the chills each time I tell this story. In that moment I had a lot more than just my deposits. I had an assurance that I was seen and heard, and that my life and worries mattered to the creator of the universe. And that felt so very good.
There are several moments in my life where I have felt complete Peace, Love, Joy, and Hope all at the same time, and this was one of them. The minutes following felt electric, because I was still absorbing the realization of the miracle that had just happened to me, for me. It wasn’t the first time or the last time I would experience a miraculous answer to prayer like this. And I look forward to sharing those stories, soon to come.
Philippians 4:19- “But my God shall supply all my needs according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.”
Confessions of a Naked J-Bird 