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Date: September 8, 2010

Books & DVDs Kingdom Chums by SQuire Rushnell Read Our Letter To Parents When God Winks on New Beginnings by SQuire Rushnell Sale Price: $15.98 When God Winks by SQuire Rushnell Sale Price: $16.00 When God Winks on Love by SQuire Rushnell Sale Price: $14.98 When God Winks at You by SQuire Rushnell Sale Price: $17.99

About 13 years ago my husband and I moved to Florida to be near his widowed mother. We brought with us my mom and her best friend, our 7 year old grandson, Sam. We set up house and started looking for work. I found a job as a seasonal clerk at a drug store and my husband began looking for a job in the printing industry. When my mother became ill the following summer and passed away a few months later, I could not return to my job.

We spent her savings to settle the bills from her illness. We lived from day to day on what we could make working as temps. One of us needed to be with Sammy, who was far from his mom, brothers, cousins, and had just lost his best friend.

Sam had been playing football with Pop Warner and came home from practice one evening and excitedly told me that we were going to have a boat because Grandpa had bought a $25 ticket in the fund raiser raffle.

I was so furious I couldn’t speak. I could only think of the groceries or shoes for Sam that $25 would have bought. I barely spoke to my husband for days. I prayed, but it was all wound up in the anger over that $25. Eventually I stopped obsessing, but the anger was simmering under the surface, waiting for a reason to strike.

I answered the phone one evening and handed it to Dick, my husband. He began grinning in that silly little boy way he has….we had won a boat!

Now I was REALLY mad! How would we be able to pay the taxes let alone run, or even store the monster? And, it was a monster. A sleek and sassy speed demon boat on a great big trailer. All my worst fears realized!

Dick and Sam went to talk with the marina owner who had contributed the boat for the raffle. He agreed to keep the boat at the marina and sell it for us. Oh, thank you!

But the months dragged on and the boat stayed in our tax records. My latest temping job was over and we were down to the last of our pitiful bank account when the Marina owner called to say the boat had sold.

I may not need to tell you that God got His share of the $18,000 that that big bad boat brought in. We lived for months on the proceeds from a ticket we couldn’t afford to buy.

Judy