COATS FROM GOD

Have you ever gotten a coat from God - writes Mina Wiarda .

Of course, all our clothes just like everything else comes from our Heavenly Father, because the earth in all its wealth belongs to Him. What I mean is. Have you ever experienced getting a coat as a direct answer to prayer just the thing you want, you have been given it in such a way that you firmly know that it is He who has bestowed it just for you ? Let me tell you what I have experienced
One winter while I worked in the northwestern part of the States, I had long been saving for a coat, something I greatly needed. Just when I had the requisite sum, I received a letter from South- Carolina from a friend there, who invited me to spend Christmas with him.

To undertake such a long and costly travel seemed to me quite unreasonable, so immediately I put the question aside. But the invitation was renewed, "Come to South Carolina for Christmas!"

"Come to South Carolina for Christmas" was again and again in the letters down there. I would also love to have this experience, but this was only a wish, and the coat was an imperative. I therefore spoke with my Heavenly Father about the case, but the more I prayed before Him, the more sure I was that I should go to my friends and in faith leave my problem to God. In obedience to this inner calling, I used as my save kittens to buy a ticket for the return trip to their city, and as expected, I got a wonderful Christmas holiday there.

On the way home I stopped a few hours in Chicago, to see another good friend there. Just as she and I that night sat in her cozy living room, she rose suddenly, went to a cupboard and took out a nice thick black robe.

She held it up to me and asked for the same thing: " Do you know someone who could use this winter coat? I myself have gone with it for a couple of years, but last fall an aunt gave me a brand new one, so I have asked God to find someone who needs it and can fit it. I think it is too good to end up with just anyone."

My friend knew nothing at all about the situation I was in, so immediately I was filled with holy wonder and joy: What a Father in Heaven, I have!

Shortly after this I confided her story of the coat and the journey, and involuntarily she exclaimed joyfully:

" Isn't it marvelous! How much God takes care of his children. "That the coat suited me, I need hardly add . The happy giver now wanted to wrap it and send it to me in the mail, but I replied that the trouble and expense she needed not have. I could easily take it with me on the bus a few hours later to continue the interrupted journey.

During the visitation we listened to the weather forecast and heard that a blizzard raged at my home and would reach Chicage before midnight. And indeed that is what happened! We passangers had barely got out of town before the temperature dropped considerably, and the snow poured down. The bus that I had chosen was poorly heated for so cold a weather. Thus we all suffered together under the cold. How I would want something really hot now to put over my knee!

I had hardly thought about this before the sleeve from the new coat slid down from the grid above where I had put it, and in thank to God I pulled the coat towards me and put it on the knees on both my neighbor and me.

During the 24-hour bus ride, I had left of my trip, this gift became beneficial for others as well. At a bus stop a young woman waited long for the bus. She was discharged from hospitaltet and had only a relatively thin coat because the weather had been unusually mild, when she left home about a week ago. How long she had been going there in the snow in front of he taxi rank , I do not know, but when she got on the bus, she was very dilapidated and was blue on the lips, so it was with great pleasure that I wrapped the warm garment around her slender figure. When she finally got off the bus, other travelers immidiately benefittet from the coat.

Since this christmas I myself have benefited significantly from the coat and still have it with me when I have my service up here in the wide open plains with the biting winds.

But God did more for me. The following autumn a third friend gave me his thick warm winter coat, and the summer after, when I came home on vacation, my sister gave me a nice long spring coat. Yes, and a little late summer supplied another friend me with an easy and short coat, designed for mild weather.

All these favours overwhelmed me completely. Never before had anyone given me a coat, and now I had four pieces, intended for each season!

It was truly coats from God! He was past countries who knew about my needs. It pleased him to use some of his faithful handmaidens to show myself and others that He is able to do far beyond what we can ask or understand!