Over the years, I went to many book sales and gathered more and more books for our own children and began sharing them with other families in our church on a casual basis. The collection grew to over 6,000 books, all housed in a 1,200 square foot house, no basement, and five children. There were bookcases in every room.
One day, my husband came home from work and said, “Go look at my car.” “Why, what happened?” I asked, thinking he had had an accident. When I went to look, the car, a little Ford Festiva, was full to the top with books some person had sent home for me. Another time, an elementary school closed near us. The library was to be boxed up and taken to the dump by Two Men and a Truck. Can you imagine? The driver told the other man in the truck, “I don’t feel right about this,” so he drove instead to the local public library and asked the librarian if she wanted the books. “Yes!” she said. She began going through the books, keeping what she wanted, and putting the rest on carts near the front desk, and priced them three for a dollar. I bought hundreds! Over the years, I have seen God provide many times in unusual ways. We had committed to quality reading for our family and to share the books with others, and He provided.