When life challenges your very existence, your response reveals your true belief system. Walk with author Rachel Donovan through some of the most challenging events a life can have and learn, as she did, how God's guidelines protect, provide, and improve who you are. Sample God’s direction, Bible history and characters in our everyday life. God is not limited in how He responds to our needs and will often provide lavishly in helping with our biggest concerns, leaving us a firm foundation to build on. God is not limited by our belief or lack of it. He isn't afraid of questions; He created them. He knows our hearts and our weaknesses and understands every trial and frailty we go through. Read along as He teaches how those hurts allow us to know Him better, love Him more, and become better, more compassionate people. Know that He Is Enough.

“I love your use of scripture in its interpretation and application.  Your writing style is very smooth and easy to read.  I know this book will bless many who might be facing the same giants you faced.”  “Very much a thumbs up!!!” Todd Patton, (Ret.) Chaplain BCSO 

“ I love every word.” Mark Iverson, Pastor, graduateMoodyBibleCollege,Chicago.   

Sometimes, we know exactly what to pray for because God gives us the prayer and then provides.
When I was teaching classes for a recovery program at a mission home, the men assigned to kitchen duty would start dinner during my class. My class was in the dining area right in front of the kitchen and the men would be able to hear the last part of the class. I taught budgeting, job skills, Christian ethics for life and anything else the program administrator wanted me to teach. My class was every Thursday afternoon.
After one of the classes one fall day, Ken showed me what they were going to have for dinner. It was some kind of soupy gravy stew with no meat in it. I asked him where the meat was and he said they were not serving any that meal. I asked him why and he told me that they were not allowed to put any meat in it. I asked if they had meat and he said yes the mission had meat but he was not allowed to put any in it. I asked him why and he did not say. I knew that he wanted to say more but could not.
That Sunday evening my church group served dinner for the street people. When I got there, Len showed me what was for dinner and again, it was soupy gravy something with powdered meat. The way the food was lined up, the people coming in would get their plates, then sweets, from local grocery store donations of out of code cakes and pastries, then salad and vegetables, then bread, and finally a small bowl of the soupy gravy mixture. This was a change in the normal line up at the end, as there was usually rice and potatoes and then the meat, sometimes a couple different kinds depending on what had been donated.
I watched as the street people lined up, usually about two hundred or so, and filled up one plate with sweets and then another plate with bread, maybe salad and then a small bowl of the soupy mixture. My heart mourned as they filled up on the sweets and had no protein, no meat. I asked Len if the mission had meat and he said yes. I asked why it was not being served and he said he could only cook what was on the menu and could not change the menu even if it did not have meat.
I started looking at the meal plans each time I was there and saw that no meat was being prepared for any of the meals unless the mission had guests coming who were going to be volunteers or donors. Most often, the guests’ meals would be cooked and served separate from the men in the program. I kept asking Len why and he kept telling me he could not change the menu and had to cook what was on it. He had asked if he could cook some of the meat and was told no. So each meal, the men and the street people would fill up on the sweets and go without meat. Often women can go without meat, but usually men can not. I also mourned because the mission was supposed to be a ‘safe haven,’ a place where people could go and be fed physically and spiritually, yet the mission was no different to them than the world because all they got was junk food.
I worried and prayed, talked to my pastor, prayed and asked him to pray. I did not know what to pray. I did not want to have to talk to the administration about it and felt that God would not want that either. The men needed me there to teach their class and if I disagreed with the administrator, I would be asked to leave the program. One day as I prayed I asked God how He would fix it. He gave me the prayer to pray so I did. I started to pray that God would provide so much meat to the mission that they would not have room to store it and they would have to start serving it again. As I talked to friends and my church group, I asked them to pray that God would provide meat to the mission to overflowing. Not everyone knew what was going on, but I asked them to pray just the same. Even my family that did not pray often prayed that God would provide my shelter family meat.
Within a week, Len called me into the kitchen and told me, “Rachel, you have to stop it!” I asked what he meant. He took me to the freezer and opened it up. It was FULL of meat!!! He told me he could not even get to the back of the freezer to get at the food there. I started laughing out loud!! He said, “That’s not all.” He took me to the walk in fridge and it was jam packed with meat, good meats. He said, “I can’t get to the rest of the food.” I asked him if he had been allowed to add meat to the menu yet and he said yes, they changed the menus for the rest of the week. He said, “But you have to stop praying for more because we don’t have room for it.” I told him that God would take care of the surplus and would reduce the inflow in His time.
God provided so much meat that the mission called another food pantry across town and donated some of the meat to them. The administration that ran the shelter received honor for giving to the other food pantry, got to take as much meat as they wanted and still had plenty to serve at all meals. Regardless of what we saw, God knew that people came to know Christ through that mission and He very graciously allowed the administration to see that they did not have to take from the mission food, that He would supply their needs also.

Rachel Donovan was born and raised in Chicago and the south suburbs of Chicago, attended school at Bloom Township High School, and received her GED in 1976. She has been a mortgage loan officer since 1989 and is currently enrolled in college at Central New Mexico Community College, pursuing a law degree to help incarcerated teens. She is a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. Her volunteer work has included many organizations—a men’s homeless shelter, a domestic violence shelter, juvenile detention centers, and women's prison facilities. Rachel has held positions on the executive board for the Rio Grande Valley Chapter of the Blue Star Mothers of America and currently resides in Edgewood, New Mexico.