The Worm Just Ate My Shade

Everyone knows the story about Jonah and the whale but there's another little part of the story that doesn't get mentioned often.  After Jonah got spat up on the beach and went to Ninevah, the city was saved.  But Jonah got mad and told God that God could have saved the city without Jonah going through his whole ordeal.  Jonah could have just stayed home and God could have done His thing and saved Jonah a whole lot of aggravation.  So Jonah marches off all mad and sits down in the blazing sun in a huff.  God was merciful and made a vine grow (quickly I guess!) and it provided shade to Jonah.  So Jonah literally cooled off and felt better.  But the next day, God sent a worm and it ate the plant and there was Jonah right back in the heat and again, he got mad.  But God used the worm and the vine to teach Jonah a lesson about priorities and provision.  I thought of that story today when I saw that I had exhausted my Unemployment Benefits.  My how time flies...  The Department of Labor website reports that because the state's unemployment level has dropped below a certain percentage, there are no extensions available.  The Unemployment money certainly isn't much and only offers a little "shade," but it is better than nothing.  I had an immediate gut-sinking feeling of, "what are we going to do now?"  Then I remembered making that same statement six months ago and God has provided over and over and over.  So just as God provided the Unemployment as a means of provision for us, He can provide any other way as well.  We don't know what happened to Jonah - at the end of the book he is still angry but I choose to believe that God taught him his lesson and Jonah learned it.  And so shall I.  God could have saved Jonah a whole lot of heartache but there was a purpose for what He did.  And I have to believe there is a purpose for this as well.