Back before our lives changed so much, Mark and I used to host a lot of social activities and parties in our home. One of my favorite times was to host our core group of friends at Christmas. It was an annual gathering of our friends and kids.

But we haven’t hosted other couples in our home in six years. We’ve had friends over occasionally, and I’ve had several girlfriends over at one time; but, we’ve not hosted a gathering of couples. Until tonight.

In November we volunteered to host our Sunday School’s Christmas party. We’re a small group, and honestly, Mark and I don’t know our classmates all that well outside of one hour on Sunday mornings. So we decided we’d have the party in our home.

We’ve spent the last week cleaning our house like mad people. In fact, Mark said to me, I like having people over. It gets the house clean. {me smiling} But last night we were trying to find three boxes of clear lights as two strands had burned out on two of our trees, and we needed a third strand for our outside tree. We’d already looked at several different stores, and they were all sold out of clear lights.

We stopped at one last store for a last-ditch effort. Just before I jumped out of the car, I said to Mark, Say a little prayer that they have some lights. I found the seasonal section and looked all around. There were a lot of boxes of multi-colored lights, but I wasn’t seeing any clear ones. I’d about given up and decided that we’d just have branches without lights on our trees for the party when I shoved aside a box of multi-colored, and there sat three boxes of clear lights. I grabbed all three and made a beeline for the checkout. I told the cashier that they must’ve been the only store in town that still had clear lights. The bagger overheard me and said that they hadn’t had any clear lights, but those three boxes had just been a return. There were no more clear lights.

I was excited, and when we got home, grabbed a strand to put on the outside tree first. Without really even paying attention to the strand, I put it on the tree, called it a success, and headed inside to replace the two strands on the other two trees. As I picked up the box off the table, I realized the strand I’d just put on the outside tree had a white wire. I panicked as I realized that white wires would stick out like a sore thumb on the indoor trees. I grabbed the other two boxes and was relieved to see that they both had green wires. They’d match perfectly!

In that second, I thought how much God cares about our lives…the details. I forget sometimes. He had not only provided three strands of clear lights, but also the exact color wires I needed and the order in which I put them on. Had I put on a strand with a green wire on the outside tree first, I would’ve had to take them off and redo them once I opened the package with a white wire.

I know it was just a small party, and in the grand scheme of life, was no huge deal; but, it was important to me to have everything look nice since I was already nervous about hosting the first party we’d had in six years. God knew that and provided peace of mind. The party was a success, and we’re starting to feel like we could do this again. The fear of the first time is over, and maybe we’ll open our home a little more often now.