A 99-cent dress

 I looked in my closet and pulled out the black and gold dress that I had planned to wear to an upcoming wedding.

It's been a few years since we've been to a wedding, so most of my nice dresses have been put away for a while.

I slipped into the dress and looked in the mirror, but it didn't fit the way that I thought it would. I tried on a few more and came across one that fit better than I thought, but it was about 12 years old and I thought maybe it was out of style --- or maybe I've had it for so long that it's back in style!

I had pretty much decided on this gray dress when I spotted a darkened stain on the skirt. I put some stain remover on it and washed it, but I guess a decade-old stain doesn't wash away so easily, so there I was back at square one.

There were a few more options, another older dress that still looks nice but has been worn plenty of times, or the black and gold original option that was OK but nothing stunning.

We're tightening up our budget a lot now that I'm not working, and I knew we didn't have any extra funds this month to be buying new clothes, especially for just one occasion, but I decided to head to a local discount store with our daughter to see if I could find anything.

I didn't.

So, I took a walk through Goodwill on our way back home and spotted a peach dress I thought might work. Dresses were $4.75, more than I really wanted to spend (yes, I didn't want to spend $5...) but I tried it on anyway.

I took it into the dressing room and saw that it had a red tag, which meant it was on sale. I didn't know how much, but I thought usually sale meant half-price at Goodwill.

The dress was nice, and I sent a video to my husband to see if he liked it. He was busy at work, so I walked around the store a bit to wait to see if he answered. He wasn't able to, and I debated whether I really needed to spend money on another dress when I had suitable options at home.

I decided to go for it and knew I could return it if I decided against it this week.

I took the dress to the register, and the cashier rang it up.

"99 cents," she said.

My eyes widened a bit.

"Wow. Well, can't beat that."

"Did you need the receipt?"

"No, I'm good." With a price like that, I didn't figure I needed to worry about returning it.

I took the dress home and tried it on with a pair of pumps and liked the look.

I had told my friend that I wasn't finding anything suitable to wear for the wedding, and she said she'd pray for me. I texted her and thanked her for her prayers and said I had found something, and for only 99 cents.

I have struggled a bit with what to pray for lately. We have some big things in our lives, and I bring them to God but I don't want to be too needy about material things. Especially with what has been happening to Christians around the world, most recently with those in Afghanistan, I just haven't felt like I could pray for trivial things.

But you know what? It seems silly, but that dress was like a little message from God telling me that he cares. He cares how I feel. And I thought, if God would bless me with something so silly as a 99-cent dress, why do I think that he doesn't care about the bigger things, trivial in the grand scheme of things or not?

It's a message that's been repeated several times in the last few days now that I look at it. Our pastor on Sunday said he was convicted during worship that he has been focusing on us pursuing God and loving God and not about how much God loves us. Our old pastor said in a sermon that I read that if we as parents, as evil humans, give gifts to our children, how much more so does God give good gifts to us? Nate even commented on a song on the radio that began with a nod to the verses about how the lilies of the fields don't worry about clothes and the sparrows don't worry about food but God cares for them, how much more does he care about us? Then the book I'm reading has been all about how God loves us and pursues us because we are valuable.

If you don't know it today --- God loves you. He cares about you. He's not bothered by your life; he has given you your life and he wants you to share it with him.

We are his first love, and he'll never stop trying to win us back.