Every morning this week, no matter how poorly the day started, I have sipped my tea with the comforting thought, “well anyway, see how God loves me?”

Which He does. Of course He does. But this week I’ve had a little extra proof of it with every cup of tea.

You see, Liam started a new job last week. Which by itself is proof of God’s constant provision, and I’ll have to tell that story in another post. But the kicker has been that the new (salaried! Yay!) job is paid monthly. So we’re going from the week-to-week, day-to-day cash flow of odd jobs and self-employment to trying to make do for a month until that first pay check.

Just about when I realized this meant we would have to be even more frugal than usual, I realized that I was down to my last couple of bags of tea. Which I simply could NOT justify replacing. Not when the $4 for another box of tea could be better spent on eggs or milk or fresh fruit. I resigned myself to stretching the last few pots as far as I could and doing without until September, but not without a quick exasperated mutter, “C’mon, really?” directed more or less at the ceiling.

Then I went back to worrying about other things. When I told my husband about the tea shortage later that day, it was more in the way of warning than complaint. I really didn’t expect him to be able to do anything about it. So it was a bit surprising when he said, “you know, I think there is box of tea at the office that doesn’t belong to anybody. I’ll ask around. It’s still in it’s packaging, unopened, and it looks like it’s been there a while.”

It put a little spring in my step the next day to think that God, in his wisdom, may have provided tea to tide me over – a box of Lipton, or Red Rose, forgotten by some long-gone visitor to the office, waiting for this week to be a comfort to me.

But God, as is so often true, exceeded my every expectation. For what Liam brought home, after establishing that it really was unclaimed and unwanted by the rest of the denizens of his new workplace, was not a box of Lipton. It wasn’t a generic ‘orange pekoe’, or a box of Red Rose.

No, what Liam brought home is proof positive that not only did God intend to provide for me, he knows me and LOVES me. Because what Liam brought home – what was sitting abandoned in a cupboard – was not a second-rate discount tea but a genuine box of loose-leaf good quality PG Tips!!

(PG Tips is a British tea – not fancy by any means, but much MUCH better in quality than anything of a comparative price here in the US. It’s my preferred every day tea but I can only find it at Whole Foods and I’ve never found it loose leaf hereabouts.)

How awesome is that? God meets not only my needs, but even my wants. (Because, let’s be honest, I really could have survived a month without tea). And then, to pile mercy upon mercy, He goes one step further and exceeds my hopes by meeting even my preferences. Like any perfect gift, the message is clear: I know you, and I love you.

So, things may be tight this month. They may be difficult. I may not always know how we are going to overcome each little crisis. But I do know that God will see to our every need.

I know, after all, how well He loves me.