Another coincidence
Those of you
who read my blog will know that for a while now I have been going on about the
difference between coincidences and answers to prayer.
More
recently I have been checking through my memory banks to bring to mind some of those
‘answered prayers’ / ‘coincidences’ that happen to those who pray and follow
Jesus. Looking back, I regret not
keeping mementos of some of those incidents.
Perhaps from now on I will do, however in life you often just say,’
thank you God’ and move on, though I hope I am grateful and really thankful and
have regard for these specific answers.
The memento
I could have kept of the story I am about to tell you, could have been copies
of my bank statements, and even though I didn’t its still, nevertheless, a
great answer to prayer and true.
This answer
to prayer (or coincidence depending on your perspective) took place before UK
decimalisation, so young readers might struggle with the figures, not
understanding the notion of 240 pence making one pound. Anyway, at this time I was living in the
North of England, my salary was the grand total of £8.10s or for younger
readers £8.50p. My wife was the full
time secretary for a local school and earned a grand total of £5.00 per week; to put these amounts into perspective my rent
was £5.10s per week (£5.50p), as you can see there was not a great deal of
financial elbow room, there was very little money left over for frivolities.
Unfortunately
for us we had somehow run up a deficit at the bank to the tune of £31.12s 32d
and the bank unfortunately had allowed us to go overdrawn by this amount
without any permission. Now, however,
they had called me in and wanted their money back. I, of course, had said, yes, I would sort it
out. When I arrived home I told my wife that
I had no idea what to do and that we had no chance of funding the deficit.
My wife
suggested writing them a cheque, explained that would not work as that was
where the money came from in the first place. We agreed that we needed to pray
for God to help us, we needed a £31.12s 32d miracle, and frankly I had no idea
where such a miracle could come from. In these situations, I find, that you
always want to provide God with the answer that you have trusted him, in prayer,
to sort out; I hope you know what I mean.
Later that
week, I had a letter from an old friend, he wrote to me enclosing a cheque made
out to myself and Pauline; the letter went something like this.
As you
know some years ago I had a serious motor accident, it’s taken years for the
insurance company to make a settlement to us, but finally it has come. I wanted at this time to say thank you to
friends who helped me and my wife during this awful time, and so now I have the
financial settlement I thought I would like to send you all a monetary thank you. So enclosed is a cheque. I know you will think that this is a funny
amount £31.12s.32p but just to explain that for you, I had quite a few friends
who helped us at that time so what I have done is taken the amount of our
settlement, deducted 10%, I then divided that 10% between all the friends who
helped me at the time and so that is why it is such a funny thank you amount.
Well of
course my friend wanted to explain his reasoning behind the division of the
thank you money, but what my friend did not know was that that cheque was to
the exact £sd (pounds, shillings and pence for younger readers) amount of my
unofficial overdraft.
When I think
about this, it’s totally mind boggling, how everything came together in such
perfect sync; the accident years before, the insurance company taking its time,
the amount of friends my friend felt had helped them at the time, the long
period of time it took to sort the settlement, that my friend was writing out
the cheques during the week that I was concerned about my overdraft, the prayer
my wife and I prayed that week, and that very week the letter arrived
containing a cheque for the exact amount.
It’s all just coincidence I hear some say, well how about a Father God
who loves his children, knows their need and answers prayer. How about that for an answer?
Adrian Hawkes
For adrianhawkes.blogspot.com
W 800
Edited by Technicolour Text
