Lately, my kids have been on a “Little House on the Prairie” binge after school. Like the kids, I love that show! In one of the episodes, a phrase jumped out at me and wrapped around my heart just when I really needed the reminder. The phrase was “Pa” saying to “Ma”, “The Lord Will Provide”.
When I heard that phrase, it was special timing. You see, last week was a hard one on multiple counts. One of the big ones is last week, we learned that either we were running out of water or our water pump was going out.
After a day of testing and consulting with the experts, my husband and the experts deduced it is most likely the water pump, which is the good news. I have no idea how we would have ever afforded to do a new well!
The hard news though is that the well pump is still expensive. The first quote to get it fixed was $5,000. All week my husband and I were brainstorming for where/how to get the money.
In the midst of all this is when I heard, “The Lord Will Provide”, words spoke in a TV show some 50ish years ago, and they comforted me.
It reminded me of a small miracle that happened last month. This is a long story, so bear with me because we need to start at the beginning.
“The Lord Will Provide”
If you’ve been around here for a while you maybe have noticed there’s something different about the look of my videos. I have a special story to tell you about how God made a way for me recently, and provided before I even knew I needed help.
A while back I asked my audience if the look of my videos was too harsh. I felt like the lighting was off, but I’ve never been that pleased with the editing in my videos to be honest with you. There’s always been something about them that I did not like.
Now, most people don’t know this, but for a 20-minute video like mine on YouTube it takes approximately 6 to 10 hours of editing time, and that’s about average. In communicating with other YouTubers I’ve learned that is about what all of us spend to make a 20-minute video.
A large chunk of that time for me was spent editing and exporting clips from a program called, Lightroom, (most of my videos have 300 to 600 clips and it took a long time going through each one).
I had been using two different programs to edit my videos in, one to do all of the color adjustments, fix exposure, and add some filters (as mentioned I did not like my filters) and another to put the videos together.
Well, over the New Year’s I decided to look for some better filters. I wanted some that were a little softer than what I had before and not quite as harsh especially with the brights and the blacks.
I shopped around for awhile, and I found some that I absolutely loved! Yay!
But then, after purchasing them, I realized they were not what I thought they were. I realized they wouldn’t work in the program that I was using to edit my videos in. I was disappointed, but then I concluded that maybe the Lord didn’t want me to change the look of my videos after all.
Here where the story starts to get really interesting!
The next morning I got up to go to work. I opened up the program (Lightroom) that I normally used to color and exposure correct and add filters, and the program had done an update overnight. It no longer supported video editing!
I started to panic. I had used this program for 5 years for video editing. I didn’t know what I was going to do! Not having any way to correct the exposure and color was going to be a disaster for the look of my videos!
After panicking for about 10 minutes and trying to figure out what what going on, I remembered God is omnipotent. “He must have a plan in this,” I told myself. I reminded myself to breathe, just breathe, don’t freak out. Then, I started doing a little research.
Within less than 15 minutes, I realized that those filters that I had mistakenly bought the day before would work in my main editing program in which I put the clips and videos together in! But it gets even better…
Next, I realized that using these new filters in my main editing program was going to shave about 2 hours editing time off my video creation and save me a ton of space on my computer!
So, 24 hours previous to this there were these filter types I didn’t know even existed but accidentally bought- not knowing that the very next day I was going to need them! Not only that, they save me time, and provide my videos with a beautiful look that I feel like the Lord helped me find and create!
I feel like the look of my videos now is like a wink from the Heavenly Father, and I love this look so much more than what I had before! I really love that this shaved 2 hours off my editing time!
Moral of the Story
The editing fiasco turning small miracle are the things that happen in our lives that happen to build our faith. It’s important to notice, appreciate, and praise God for the little miracles like this. When we do this, and when we remember the miracles God has done for us, be they big or small, it helps us trust and praise God more when the big stuff happens.
In Psalms 22:3 it says,
“Yet You are holy, You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.”
From this verse we can learn that by praising the Lord and remembering what He has done for us, it pleases Him and helps us to have even more Faith that He has got us and whatever situation we are dealing with.
Sometimes, when it seems like God is closing a window or a door, don’t lose heart! Don’t lose Faith! He has a plan! Just like it says in Romans, the Lord causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him.
Regarding our water pump, for our entire time we have lived here, we have had water issues that have been exasperating at times. Last year, the lack of water caused our garden to suffer more than it would have; we were not able to keep up with laundry, and it was all so frustrating! Right now, the current water pump is underperforming, but it is still miraculously getting us by! There was one day we thought it quit altogether but it picked back up again. We are so thankful it is still going and giving us time to get it fixed!
Perhaps this year, the Lord allowed the pump to go out now so we would get on getting it fixed because he is preparing us for a better growing season this summer, maybe?
I don’t know for sure, but I do know we all can trust that “The Lord Will Provide” and that He has a plan!
