When the winter chill bites into your bones and you are hungry, remember the Pilgrims who colonized in the New World. They kept it nearly as a mantra, whilst crossing the Atlantic and on through their first years on America's fertile soil: Providence will provide.

When your last dime flutters down past your socks, through that hole in your jeans, and you don't know where the next meal will come from, rely on the faith that Providence will provide.

When trouble assails you from all quarters and you cannot see where next to turn, look upwards with radiant acquiescence and pray that Providence will provide.

When you are a stranger in a strange land with no friends at your side, Providence will provide.

Providence might be God. It might be friendship or kindness. It might be luck. It might be mercy. It might be anything you need at the eleventh hour, just in the nick of time and your back is against the wall. Providence is that which provides. Sometimes you can be someone else's providence and never even know it. Hope, love, money, faith, patience, food, a ride home... providence can take as many forms as is necessary for any single person.

What you want is not what you always need. What you need is not always what you want. Providence is both, did you but know it.