God's Faithfulness...

Below is an email that I sent out to people after the safe return of my purse that was stolen in Walmart over my spring break in March. I shared with with close friends and family because it is a testament of God's faithfulness and how His hand is over every aspect of our lives. Cool story!!

Hello my beautiful friends and family!
I just wanted to share an awesome story! As most of you know, my purse was stolen(or I misplaced it somehow) at Walmart about 3 weeks ago. It happened right before I was to leave for a mission trip to New Orleans. In my purse was about 150 dollars, credit cards, check card, license, ipod nano, cool lip gloss, my AMC movie card with over 150 credits, my medicine, basically my life. I went to New Orleans with none of this...thankfully, my phone happened
to be in my pocket that day so I had that with me. I think that someone may have taken it out of my front seat when I went to put my buggy up. Anyways, @ the moment that I realized it was gone, I was so confident in my God that He would bring it back. I know I sounded bold when I told someone that I wouldn't be surprised if it was turned up because I serve a good God. When it didn't turn up before we were to leave, I got really discouraged...I was upset and
kinda mad. I got just the encouragement I needed when my best friend Tanea sent me a text message that said, "you walk in favor!" I do have favor and I kept my chin up and told God that even if my purse was never returned, I would still follow Him and still trust Him with my life...purse or no purse. His word promises that He will never leave or forsake me. (Deut. 31:6) I rested in that promise!! I had everything I needed. My awesome dad was able to send me
money down to New Orleans and I had gracious friends buy some meals for me(thanks Tanea and Allen/Nancy). So anyways, I had completely submitted my purse to the Lord...afterall, it wasn't mine to begin with. I did however continue to pray for the person who stole it...that he would be convicted and would turn it back in...or that when he was listening to my ipod he would hear an uplifting song and be changed...haha silly I know but I was "praying for my enemies"(Matthew 5:44). Anyways, today as I was driving, I decided to call Walmart on a whim and see if it was turned in. I wish you could have seen my face when the lady on the phone said "yup, it's here!" I was ecstatic!! I whipped my car around so fast. I have been calling Walmart weekly to see if someone has turned it in yet and nobody had until now. Crazy huh!!?!? But it
gets better...everything was untouched!! My money, ipod, everything. It was turned in earlier this week...either someone has had it this whole time and just turned it in or somebody stashed it somewhere and it was just found. I'm not really sure what happened other than I know that God had a plan for it for the beginning...I was simply a lowly vessel...As I was driving to go and get my purse today, I was smiling from ear to ear and wanted to sing as usual. (Psalm 147:1) I wanted to sing the perfect song to praise my God...I decided to see what was on the radio and before I turned it on I had a feeling that the most perfect song would be playing. I pushed the button, and the DJ was introducing a song...it immediately started playing and was Chris Tomlin, "How great is our God". I couldn't help but cry @ the irony and coincidence of the
song with the day's events...and then I remembered that I don't believe in coincidence. God is good!!! Thanks for reading it this far...I appreciate all of you and am so glad to have you in my life! Just remember that He always has our back! Many blessings!!
Much love,
Whitney :)