When we lived at the big blue house of hope in China, there was a little girl in our care had a condition called PKU, an abbreviation for phenylketonuria.
PKU is an inborn error of metabolism in which the necessary enzyme to breakdown specific proteins is missing. The kiddos we cared for affected by PKU had to adhere to special diets and have routine lab work done to ensure their levels did not get too high which could lead to problems with their mental and cognitive functioning.
There was a special kind of formula we gave to this little girl which was not only expensive but it could only obtained by prescription from doctors and dietitians in the US. I always kept a precise count on how many cans of formula we had, planning ahead to know exactly when we needed more so that we would never run out.
The formula stock was depleting but there was a team schedule to arrive the next week that would be bring bags of supplies which we were told contained formula. At the last minute, the trip was canceled due to snow and ice which meant no bags of supplies.
Being the type A planner that I am, I felt this would be a good time to start making a game plan. I like to have a plan of action in place that I can fall back on if everything goes wrong. Part of that plan includes having a plan B and often a plan C as well.
As time continued to elapse and the supply was further depleted, I thought through all the things I could do to make sure we got this formula on time. Fromm contacting people stateside who could provide what we needed and getting in touch with the dietitian who tailored nutrition plans for our PKU kids to let her know that we needed to make a plan in case we didn’t get formula in time, I was frantically trying to make things happen.
We were down to the last can of formula with a team set to arrive the next day, though we had no confirmation that they were indeed bring more of the desperately needed formula. With no other option, I pulled the last can of formula out of the cabinet and hoped we’d get more in time.
The very next day a team arrived with twenty suitcases of supplies. One entire suitcase had been dedicated solely to formula. With nearly fifty cans of formula, it was 4x more than we had ever received at one time. As I unzipped the suitcase that revealed the formula, it was as if I could audibly hear God whisper in my ear saying ‘hey, I got this.’
He didn’t forget, he knew all along what this little girl needed.
The contrast was striking, a little orphaned girl in the middle of China who was left and forgotten by her biological parents, was not left and forgotten by God.
He knew, he remembered.
She didn’t worry one bit, she didn’t fret over whether or not she would have formula when it ran out, I did all the worrying and fretting for both of us.
The suitcase full of cans of formula served as a powerful reminder that worrying doesn't add a single hour to our life. He's got it, he's got us & he's got the whole world in his hands.
'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
Matthew 6:25-32