REWARD!!!

Not so long ago, I had several trees taken out of my yard. Our yard is not lacking trees, we have plenty, however the ones we had taken out had issues or I had issues with them. One tree was dying and the other tree was hanging over our pool continuously dropped its' leaves and bark at the bottom of the pool making a mess. We spend more time cleaning the pool than we do swimming in it. There is no guilt about the tree removal.

I hired some yard men to take out the trees. Note, I said "yard" men. They do a good job at the neighbors yard and they had all the tree climbing equipment so I figured they knew what they were doing in regards to tree removal, as well. One of my neighbors discouraged me from using them because they were not insured and my daughter thought my decision to use them was somewhat reckless. I was looking at the cost of the removal and these men were cheap.

After many prayers before and during the removal, the trees were successfully removed. I wrote them a check and off they went.

Two days later the tree men came back knocking on my door. They informed me they had lost my check. They wanted me to write them a new check. They assured me that they did not know where the check was and they really needed the money. Red flags started waving in the air. I started to think that maybe my neighbors' and my daughters' concern was justified. I did not know these men and I sure was not going to write them another check. English was their second language and we had difficulty understanding one another. They were frustrated and I was cautious! I told them I would have to go to the bank and put a stop payment on the check and wait a week before I could rewrite them a new check. They didn't understand and I didn't know how else to explain the delima that I was in, as well.

They left and I went indoors replaying their conversation in my head trying to figure out if they were sincere. My heart wanted me to just trust them but my brain said 'wait'. I waited.

The next day I received a phone call from a man claiming that he worked at a car wash and found a large check with my name on it. He told me when he would be working at the car wash the next couple of days so I could pick it up. The address he gave me did not register on my 'Garmin' and according to all calculations the address was about 45 minutes away from where I lived. If this man had my check I wanted it back. He too only spoke small amounts of English, we had a language barrier. He did not understand that he could just mail the check to me, oh no, I had to come get it according to him.

This morning my daughter and myself load up in the car and we drive to an undisclosed location. We were just aware of the vicinity of where I was to pick up the check. We stopped at many car washes and each time we stopped I had to explain to the attendant what I was looking for and to my dismay all of them thought I was a crazy. We were almost out of gas and the road was leading us no where. I think I resolved myself that I had been duped. My mind started wandering thinking maybe I was going to be kidnapped, robbed or my car was going to be car jacked. I was thinking other things too, but I am too embarrassed to write it down. Our last and final stop at the end of town was at a small car wash with two barely English speaking attendants. When I drove up and told them my situation they smiled and walked to their car. I started getting nervous. They had my check. He handed it politely to me and said 'have a great day'. That was it, 'have a great day'. Now I had almost drove 1 1/2 hours to get my check and nothing else happened except 'have a great day'. This was just too simple. Where's the action??? My imagination over imagined. I was told to just 'have a great day'?

Once I had the check in my hand I went to get some money out of my billfold and as usual it was empty. My daughter handed me $5.00 and I gave it to the man and told him to spend it on his lunch. He too looked at me like I was crazy. He just smiled and told me to have a good lunch. I tried to hand it back to him and he insisted that he didn't need it. I insisted that I needed to give it to him for helping me out of such a dire situation. We both smiled, he took the money and I left. We drove home.

Such craziness in my head. First, I thought the tree people were trying to get more money out of me and then I thought the person who found my money was tricking me. My thoughts sometimes get out of control. To much T.V. for someone who doesn't watch T.V.

I also feel I have done a disservice to the men who cut down my trees. I over reacted with my thoughts about them. My mind wandered, thought the worse and then some. Once I found the car wash where the man had the check my mind worried some more.

God promises in 1Peter 5:7 "Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you".

My lesson today is that I should not have given into evil thoughts about the tree cutting men nor should I have worried about the man who handed me my check once found. If I could just give my worries up to the Lord I could have had a nice drive to my destination with my daughter today versus a frantic one.

God provides, will we accept his reward?