When I was about nine years old, our family took a road trip up to Canada!  It was a great vacation!  On the first day of our trip, my parents told my brother and I that we each could have twenty dollars to spend in the gift shops that we came across along the way.  Oh boy!!  Gift shopping!! 😉  My brother was good about saving his money and spending it throughout the trip…I however, would usually spend my twenty in the first shop or two and it would be gone!  😉  Love me some gift shops!!

A few days into our trip, we were a little south of Jasper, and my Dad and brother were wanting to see a bear.  I had about three dollars left of gift shop money and my Mom (seeing how much my brother wanted to see a bear in the wild) said out loud, “Okay, whoever spots a bear gets seven dollars of gift shop money!”)  I heard that and suddenly perked up!  Gift shop money???  I’m in!  I sat in the back seat, silently prayed to God asking Him if He would show me a bear (sneaky, huh?), and began to scan with stealth-like eyes the woods surrounding.  I’ll admit my motivation for seeing a bear was less than pure hearted, but no kidding, in about five minutes I saw something move in the trees…something that looked like a bear.  “A bear!!!” I cried.  We pulled over to the side of the road, and sure enough, there was a black bear behind us crossing the street.  Other cars soon pulled over and there were photos taken by many.  I was the happiest though….I got seven dollars that day.  I said a silent prayer of thanks to God! 😉

Now zoom ahead twenty years.

Mike and I were on our first trip to Yellowstone as a married couple!  Our first big road trip together!  Mike mentioned he hadn’t seen a bear in the wild before, so I thought, well, I’ll ask God again (I wasn’t even motivated by gift shop money this time!) 😉  “God, please let us see a bear in the wild today!” God heard that prayer!

We were videoing Old Faithful Geyser from the opposite end of the crowds…away from everyone.  Suddenly, we heard someone off in the distance start yelling about a bear!  Not more than 30 feet behind us was a Grizzly Bear!  I’m not even making this up!  My legs started feeling hot and tingly…mainly because I knew this was no black bear!  It meandered past us to the meadow below us…and it wasn’t long before we saw ambulances and  park rangers arriving at the scene just in case the bear decided to do something.  If we hadn’t been there in that moment, we would have missed it.

Mike and I knew God let us see something extraordinary that day.  We also knew we were kept safe.  You want to see a bear, Tami?  Okay.  How about a grizzly? 😉  God is cool like that.

By the way, the bear photos in this blog are not the photos I took.  I took shaky video and my bear photos are in storage right now. 🙂  These internet ones will have to do!

A few weeks ago, we took the kids to South Lake Tahoe.  A much needed vacation!  It had been a great trip so far, but our three kiddos were getting fussy in the backseat with each other.  I was tired of the squabbling so I said, “Why don’t you guys look out your windows and see if you can see a bear?!”  I said it out of frustration, but then I suddenly prayed out loud, “God, please let us see a bear!!”  I then told them how I once had won seven dollars for seeing a bear.  “Whoever sees a bear today gets seven dollars!” 🙂

We decided to take a hike down to an old castle built years ago near Emerald Bay called Vikingsholm.  We toured this historic place, got some ice cream at the visitors center and decided to hike back up to the car.

We passed a little ranger station shed and an old ranger who was collecting trash.  Up the hill we started our hike.  I was walking with our two youngest and my husband and my oldest were behind us.  Just as we were about to round a corner up ahead, I suddenly saw a huge black bear coming down our path ahead of us.  I can still see it’s huge head coming around from behind the trees!  It had just rounded the corner!  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! Are you kidding me???  I remembered that prayer I had prayed.  A bear on the trail heading straight for us??  I wanted to take a photo so people would believe me, but I decided our safety should come first.  I said very calmly, “Okay, there is a bear on the path ahead of us and it’s heading our way.  Lets walk back to that ranger station.”  The ranger station was close, and the ranger hopped in his jeep and shooed the bear back into the woods.

“Mommy gets seven dollars!” my husband said.  😉  Okay…I will admit…I silently cheered over my gift shop money win!

  X 7!!  🙂

Three bears and three prayers.  Coincidences?  Are you kidding me?  No way.  It just feels too much like God to be coincidences.

We’ve been asking God to bring the right job for my hubby since January.  If you’ve read my latest blogs, you know this.  The wait has been tough.  My husband is a trooper and I’m so in awe of his faith and strength.  But it’s easy to get discouraged sometimes and trusting God when you can’t see the plan is not always easy.

But then there are the bears…We asked God if we could see a bear and that day we saw a bear.  If only the job would come as quickly.  The way I see it is that God has perfect timing on everything and that right job will come.  If God cares enough about us to send us a bear, how much more will He bring about a wonderful job for Mike!  It may sound strange to some, but I absolutely believe that God sent us that bear to encourage us.

Sometimes we have not because we ask not. 🙂  So, as for me, I’ll keep asking for bears!

“And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of Him.”  1 John 5:15