Yes, He does!
Serving as an executive director for a pregnancy center and maternity home means you do a lot of “other duties as assigned.” One of those “other duties” is providing overnight and/or weekend coverage for the maternity home when staff is out sick or unavailable.
Of course, overnights and weekend in the maternity home have lots of perks…I get to have in-depth conversations with our residents and learn a lot about our moms and their hopes and dreams. Plus, you can’t leave out the extra benefit of babies, babies and more babies!
But sleeping on a strange bed is another matter. Especially for me – I’m “over the hill” by any standard and afflicted with the aches and pains of a body that is less than perfect. One of those weekends, I happened to have a video conference call with our Board of Directors. I apologized for being exhausted and shared I hadn’t slept well the past couple of nights. I jokingly said, “If only I had a sleep number bed in here!”
Right away, they suggested I look into it. After all, if I was that uncomfortable, it was likely the regular night staff was too. Keeping our employees comfortable and happy is important to all of us. I believe God cares about the quality of our sleep, after all — He was the first to introduce the concept of “Rest.”
So the next week, I asked our Development Director, Kevin, to see if the local Sleep Number store had a donation program. They didn’t, but said we could reach out to the corporate office. Meanwhile, he took the opportunity to share with her a little bit about our maternity home and the great work happening here and left his business card.
Two days later, a man walks into the same store, speaks to the same woman, and asks, “Do you have a donation program? I have a brand new sleep number that was in my guest room and has only been used a few times. I’d like to donate it.” The women tells him they do not, but a gentleman was recently in looking for a donated bed. She handed him Kevin’s card.
Imagine his surprise when he saw it was Care Net, an organization he already supported! Tom called us right away to ask us if we wanted the bed – complete with all the top-of-the-line bells and whistles – a reclining head and foot with zero gravity, a foot warming function, sheets, and bedding to go with it!
What a beautiful reminder that God is always working things together for our good! The new bed has been a blessing for all the night staff and I’m looking forward to trying it out at my next turn filling in a shift.