God never leaves us alone—never, ever, for a single second!

It is amazing how the Lord will provide when you just trust him. Sometimes all you have to do is trust, and he meets your needs in wonderful and surprising ways. I think that he has been slowly prodding me to come to this understanding, to recognize the relationship between faith and miracles. He is so patient to wait around until we are ready to learn and grow. I just want to say that I love my God, and I am so grateful for his love for me.

That might all sound dramatic in the context of the story behind it, but my emotions run deep, and I can't help but let them out sometimes. Paul fondly calls me his little faucet woman because the tears just run out of me like water from a faucet. (For the record, I think crying is a very healthy thing to do, and some people need to do it more often.)

Anyway, about a month ago, I started worrying about earning money during the summer. Our bank account was low, and the shopping trips were turning into grit-your-teeth bare essential affairs. Paul was talking about traveling to visit his family in California and I was thinking that covering the rent might be a more immediate concern. I told Paul I wanted to get a job, and he reminded me that I don't handle retail jobs very well, and that is probably the only opportunity available in Hays.

I was asked to give a talk on Easter Sunday, and I was so busy with my classes that I barely prepared anything. I don't know how the talk went, honestly, but I had my Savior in my thoughts the whole week leading up to it, and that had a profound impact on me. I thought about how Jesus's life ended on the week of the Passover and how beautiful that symbolism was. The feast commemorated the time when Jehovah sent the destroying angel to kill all of the firstborn children—and then he saved all of those who were willing to be faithful to him. Jehovah proved that night that he was the master of life and death, and he would prove it again in the flesh by giving up his life and taking it again.

I thought about Christ back when he was Jehovah in the Old Testament, how he stood with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the flames, how he caused the sun to move back an hour, how he provided manna in the wilderness for the wandering children of Israel, how he repeatedly cared for his children and preserved them in their trials.

One day, I was thinking about all of my trials, and I suddenly remembered a time years ago when I had been taking a walk alone. I had been so depressed on that day, feeling completely alone and hopeless. And then I looked up and saw a tree with little droplets of dew all over it's winter-bare branches. The sun shone through the little droplets like a thousand spots of fire, and it was one of the most brilliantly beautiful things I had ever seen. I remember how the spirit washed over me in that moment, and I felt an absolute certainty that my God was with me, that he loved me, and that he would always be there for me.

And as soon as I remembered it, I was flooded with more memories, memories of times when my friends said exactly the thing I needed to hear, when someone randomly sent me money in the mail on the day when I desperately needed to buy something, when I somehow knew the answers on a test, when passages in books had touched my heart, when I found things that had been lost, when I drove through scary storms unscathed, when I felt the spirit testify to me over and over again that the Church was true—all of these thoughts and many more came rushing over me, and I realized that I had never, ever, for a single second, been left alone. My every need had always been met, and if I just put my trust in God, I would see that my needs always would be.

So it should not have been surprising just a few days later when two different employment opportunities came to me on the same day. A friend that I have done freelance work for in the past called and offered me a job writing website content. Later in the day, my Grandpa Madsen called and asked me to help him type and compile a huge family history book for which I would be paid by the hour. It really felt like pennies from heaven, especially because I didn't tell anyone I was looking for work. They both just came to me and acted like they were inconveniencing me by asking me to work for them.

So now I'm busy. My last final is tomorrow, and I am already neck-deep in my summer work. I am grateful that the Lord has provided me with work which I can do well and that I can enjoy. He is a great God.