Spilled Medicine and Free Insurance

     Throughout the 17 years that Victor and I have served the Lord together, He has provided in many ways and in many situations.  His provision has ranged from the powerful and miraculous to the small and sweet, yet no less miraculous.  However, His provision on June 5th tops our list of "God's Creative Ways to Provide."
     The clock had nearly reached its 10 o'clock p.m. mark when Martha, our 16 year old daughter, came into the kitchen to inform us that she had accidentally spilled all of her seizure medicine in her sock drawer!  After coaxing the little glass bottle, we produced the two precious drops needed for the night dose and the one little droplet for the following morning.  (Sigh of relief!)
     The next morning, I began to search my office for her prescription so that Victor could purchase the needed medication.  As I ruffled through papers, I ran across the insurance policy for our bus.  A neuron in my brain clicked, setting off a tiny little alarm that recalled Victor recently mentioning that the policy was set to expire in May.  So, I took the envelope to him and, sure enough, the policy had expired six days earlier on May 31.
      Seeing that we planned on using the bus in less than 5 days to get God's team of volunteers to the crusade in Michoacan, we needed to purchase bus insurance ASAP.  The problem?  We did not have the money to pay for the $500 policy.  (I don't know if that is cheap compared to U.S. insurance or not, but the deal is, cheap or not, we simply did not have the $500.)
     I suggested Victor start by simply calling the insurance company, while I continued to look for Martha's prescription, and that he inquire about a 6 month policy or even a one month deal.  Although we had no money for the insurance, we needed the insurance, so, when you need insurance, what do you do?  You call the insurance company!
     Victor called the company, obediently gave our policy number, and was then politely informed that our policy had been cancelled shortly after it was drawn up due to a lack of payment!  Mind you, as Victor is being told this astounding news he has the actual payment receipt in his hand!  We had paid!  The payment stub was right there!  Somehow, someway, for some reason, the agent with whom Victor had dealt a year ago had not recorded the payment and the policy had been cancelled.  Technically, we had been driving our bus around for a whole year, confident that we had insurance, when we really did not!
     After a bit of conversation, the befuddled agent on the other end promised to look into the fumble and get back to Victor soon.  I emailed her a copy of the policy and the payment stub and Victor walked out the door, with the prescription I had found in hand, to go and purchase Martha's medication and run a few other errands, as we waited for the phone call from the insurance agent.
     I continued with my morning's activities when, about an hour later, Victor called me on his cell phone.  He excitedly exclaimed:  "Guess what?  The insurance lady just called.  They still aren't sure what happened, but considering the fact that we paid for a year's worth of insurance that we technically did not receive, they offered to give us an entire one year insurance policy for the bus for free!"  We just laughed and laughed!  The company representative did explain that, had we had an accident during the year we thought we were covered, but technically weren't, the same error would have been discovered and they would have covered the accident.  So, we technically didn't have insurance last year, but we would have been covered had an accident occurred, but since we really didn't have insurance they decided to give us a year of coverage for free!  (Did you follow that?)
     Victor met the agent later that afternoon and picked up our policy for one year of free bus insurance!
     In all the insurance excitement we temporarily forgot about the medicine, but then, before he hung up, Victor continued, "And you know what happened with Martha's medicine?  As I was leaving the house to go and purchase the medicine, two of the volunteer crusade nurses were arriving at the ranch to sort medicines for next week's crusade.  I asked them if they knew, by chance, if we had any of that specific medicine on hand.  They started to giggle and said that a member of their church had given them eight little bottles of that medication the Sunday before because her doctor had suspended her prescription!"  The nurses handed over the bottles of free medicine to Victor!
      I must admit that when Martha told us that she had spilled her medicine in her sock drawer the night before we were rather irritated.  However, I must also admit, that later that afternoon I thanked Martha for spilling her medicine in her sock drawer!  (You should have seen her face when I thanked her!)  Because of her spilled medicine, we ran across the expired insurance policy, which led to a year's worth of free insurance, and God even threw in the free medicine that we needed to boot!
     God certainly took the opportunity of spilled medicine in a sock drawer to remind us that His creative provision has no limits!  Truly, "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him"...even in spilled medicine!