I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name forever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name forever and ever. Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; His greatness no one can fathom. One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts. They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They will tell of the power of your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds. Psalm 145:1-6 (NIV)
November means History Fair, the biggest annual event of my job. We usually have over 1200 students submitting exhibit boards, papers, performances or documentaries on historical topics. We begin planning in June, but once registration is complete at the end of October, we assign judges, print reports, prepare certificates, order prizes and do all the last minute things that we cannot do until we know how many students will participate. During this time, my staff and I eat, sleep and breathe History Fair. We are so consumed by it that we do not think of anything else, and we can’t understand when people expect us to pay attention to other things. Insurance reenrollment, government and civic meetings, school tours and accounting are all set aside until after the awards ceremony and the final call from parents upset because their child did not win. In the past, I have kept track of all the big and little details that had to be done to pull the fair together. This year, due to other responsibilities, I was forced to do what I should have done many years ago, delegate. I divided up all the duties. Everyone is doing great work, but I have been feeling unsettled not knowing exactly how the whole affair will come together. Today, I got into a panic over judges. I had been hearing mutterings among staff that we did not have enough volunteers to help evaluate the entries. When we sat down to divide the entries among judges, we figured how many entries we had and divided the number by the amount of names and prepared the forms for judging. It took all day to do and about Noon, I began to worry even more. What if I had not figured right? What if I got all these packets together and then, did not have enough people willing to work? I turned my worry into prayer and tried to trust God to take care of it all. At 4:00 this afternoon, we assigned the last judge to the last set of evaluation sheets. I had exactly enough judges, no more, no less. I knew Who was responsible for that miracle, and was excited about how God had worked. However, when I told my staff of the reason for my relief, they chalked it up to coincidence, good planning, luck or a twist of fate. “ No”, I was quick to remind them, “There is no such thing a good fortune.” It was all an answer to prayer, an example of God at work, His divine intervention in my life and theirs. But, most think my belief that God would care about matching volunteers to judge’s sheets is ludicrous. I could have kept His answer to my prayer to myself, after all, my faith was built. But, I am called to speak of His great deeds to this and future generations. No matter how busy I am, I will keep telling, even if no one else is listening.
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