Market Blessings!

We (husband and I)set off this morning to the indoor market in Derby for swathes of bright cloth for the launch of youth group. The youth will decorate the walls of the church hall so that they really feel like they own the space.

The very first stall we come to is that of a woman selling sheets. Her sheets are about £15 though - we can't afford it. She gives advice about how to look at the weft of the cloth for quality so that we buy the right sort of thing. We leave. She then runs after us saying she might have some shower curtains that would work; we say we might come back.

At the next stall, in the middle of the market, we buy thick canvas and bright blue cloth (our logo colour), but not as much as we would have liked: it's expensive. I have a feeling that we should return to the first stall, my husband would rather we didn't - we have enough. The man at this next stall charges us £4 too much by accident for what we've bought and messes up our till receipt. The woman selling the shower curtains had talked about how she could let us have them for £4, so I figure that if we go back to her and buy one, the receipt for church will be put right again - our minds are made up.

Back we go. She fetches shower curtains that are the exact colour of our logo. She starts to ask questions about what we need them for. I share with her our ideas. She says we can have one extra for free. She starts to ask about our church; she's a Christian who has had experiences about setting up youth groups! Do we want some orange material too, for free? I tell her about MUG and FOG and our Sunday services and our youth group and she wants to come along to MUG and bring her friends with her! (I wrote down the details of all these gatherings on the back of an Alpha flyer - the only piece of spare paper I had in my bag!) Praise God for his blessings - as Rev Anne Hibbert of The Well explained, 'God never fails to pay for what he's ordered' and sometimes it's a case of getting a little more than you'd ordered too! The cup just flows over!