God Cares...

about what a 14 year old wants to wear to a Father/Daughter banquet. There is a story behind this and I want to share it because it is an example of God's love and goodness to my daughter. I pray she will always remember that He loves her this much. Hope's plans for this winter/spring included a father/daughter banquet at our church in February then a homeschool spring banquet in April. The dress for the father/daughter banquet was "sunday dress to semi-formal". We purchased a dress that was a bit dressy but was easily wearable for Sunday church. It was a bit pricey. We then found a dress for spring banquet...we didn't buy it but were planning on taking Dad to get it approved before the purchase...also a bit pricey. In the mean time we discover that we will be out of town the weekend of spring banquet. So that dress is out of the picture (it was beautiful and was gorgeous on Hope). There is sadness. Then we found out that the f/d banquet could be formal. New visions of the formal dress! We discussed it with Dad and he (wisely) said that there was already a dress for f/d and that we didn't need to spend so much on another dress when Hope already had one. He was willing to let her get another dress and gave us a limit, which I thought was a very generous limit. So the hunt began...and it was a hunt :P We literally looked everywhere I could think of for a reasonably priced formal. I was wishing that University Mall hadn't closed down because they had a store that would probably fit the bill but....it was closed. (for Autumn and Dawn, remember Nouri?) Anyway, there was one more store, that I found in the phonebook. That morning before we went shopping I prayed and asked the Lord to provide Hope's hearts desire. We went and looked...nothing (we were not only looking for low cost but modest or easily made modest) We left the store and I was ready to tell her that she would just have to wear the dress we bought. I said,"Do you want to go to the new Penny's one more time?" She said "yes". So off we went. As we came to the new shopping center where Penny's was located, I saw THE sign....NOURI. I told Hope to look at the sign. She became very excited and said "go, go" Well to make a long story a little shorter. The Lord completely answered our prayer. She got her hearts desire(the dress) AND shoes AND earrings for $15 under the stated budget!!! How wonderful of our God to do such a thing. Oh, the store had only been open for 4 days! God cares about His children and their hearts desires. Here is a pic of the blessing dress :) and our beautiful Hope.