Chick-fil-a gave us free chicken for a year. I'm not even kidding.
And this means I'm God's favorite. Now before you go freaking out on me, let me clarify. First of all, we're ALL God's favorite. It's a complex God thing and I can't explain it, other than to say it works in the same way that God can have a personal relationship with every single person who chooses to know Him. Otherwise, if you know God and you love God and you serve God, then you're His favorite too. (And if you want more clarification and you want to talk about this in person, we can totally make that happen.) I digress!
So as many of you know, Daniel & I are the middle of a financial... freeze right now. After having drained our savings to buy the Price Hill house, there's not a whole lot of spending going on right now. And, to make things worse, we found out we owe the city of Cincinnati $607 in back taxes this year. (That one hurt like a blow to the gut.) Needless to say, I've been talking to God A LOT about His plans to provide for us and trying to remind myself to rely on God for security and not how much money we have saved.
We've also had some cool moments of provision too. A friend at church gave us 6 lbs of ground beef and a friend from my bible study gave me a plastic bag full of various cuts of beef from their grass fed, farm raised cow. Needless to say, God IS providing just not in the form of cash money per say.
Ok, now pause for some back story. About a month ago, Pam, a friend from church asked if our family would like to ride on a float in the Red's Opening Day parade. We said, "uum YES!" She works for Chick-fil-a and made all the arrangements for us to be "the family" on the Chick-fil-a float. We had a BLAST! The Chick-fil-a folks were so kind to us. They gave us a Chick-fil-a swag bag which included a SELFIE STICK! I was in heaven. We had a great time and truly loved being Chick-fil-a's "Fan Family." Then, a few days after the parade, Pam emailed again and said that the manager of the Chick-fil-a in Anderson wanted to have us over for lunch! Well, we jumped at the chance for some FREE Chick-fil-a.
So that brings us up to today and why I'm God's favorite.
We scheduled the lunch for 11am today and, true to form, we were running late. We got to Chick-fil-a around 11:10, and I noticed Pam's husband Glen taking pictures of us as we walked in. It seemed a little odd but Pam does the Anderson Chick-fil-a's marketing so I didn't think anything of it. We walked in the door and suddenly heard cheering! My parents were there! Daniel's parents were there! Several families from church and some from our small group were there! It was a Chick-fil-a SURPRISE party!! FOR US!! I was COMPLETELY surprised (and I'm hard to surprise, I'm good at guessing.) So after greeting everyone, we got settled into our table because Chuck, the owner operator of the Anderson Chick-fil-a had a message for us. It was then that he pulled out the HUGE gift check with our names on it and told us we've earned free Chick-fil-a for a year. A YEAR! Heaven help my self control.
After we had eaten our delicious and free lunch (Chick-fil-a treated everyone at our surprise party to a free lunch!) and after the kids had played in the playland, we loaded up to go to our next event. In the car, as we were processing through all that had happened, I told Daniel that I felt so spoiled by God. He didn't have to do something so over-the-top for us. And getting free Chick-fil-a for a year certainly isn't going to help our lack of savings yet I still felt wildly cared for. loved. spoiled. by the God of the universe who see me and knows my heart and knows my troubles and fears and worries. I FELT like God's favorite today. And it felt so good!
