God Provides . . . Again

Have you ever prayed for something and then started to think of ways that God might answer your prayer? And then get discouraged because you can't think of any possible way He could do it?

I'm guilty of this from time to time. But let me reassure you, God is creative! I was reminded of that this week.

On Friday morning I called to check my bank account balance to see if my paycheck had been direct deposited. It told me my balance was $99,000+. I figured I must have the wrong account, so I called again. Same thing. I went through my transactions, and they included a wired deposit on October 21 (8 days earlier) of $98,000+. Needless to say, I didn't remember making that deposit.

I pressed "0" to talk to an operator. They checked with the wiring company and called me back and told me it was my money. They told me where it had originated from. I would love to have just taken their word for it and enjoyed my $98,000, but I was pretty sure it was all a mistake.

I looked up the company who had sent it on the Internet, found a phone number for them and called them later that day. The man I talked to was quite surprised. After I gave him more details, he said it was indeed a mistake. He knew the exact amount of the deposit. He asked me to overnight him a check, minus $1,000, which I could keep for my trouble.

I called the bank back late that afternoon, and they told me definitely not to send him a check, but that it was probably a scam, and I needed to transfer the money to another account and close my account. I went to the bank the next day and talked to someone else. We did some investigating and found out that the account the man had tried to transfer the money to had a very similar account number to mine. After getting more advice, we decided to leave the account open, but she would call the man on Monday and see about getting the wire reversed or forwarding it to the intended recipient. She would also ask him if I could still have the $1,000 he had told me I could keep.

On Monday she did talk to him. The wire was reversed, and he agreed I could still have the $1,000, which he wired to me today.

So no, I didn't get to keep the $98,000, but I did get $1,000 out of it that I definitely hadn't planned on getting. God is providing for our needs, sometimes in very interesting ways. If I had thought about it for hours, I doubt I would have ever come up with this one!