glimpses of His perfect faithfulness

Sunday afternoon.

Keith and Ezekiel napping on the couch, Priscilla resting and listening to "The Jesus Storybook Bible" on CD in her room, Abraham resting in his room with a pile of books, me enjoying the two hours of the week (3:00 - 5:00 pm on Sundays) when I truly give myself the freedom to relax, ignore the dishes and the laundry, and have a nice little quiet time.

It's been a hard week, but we have seen the Lord's blessings, too.

Keith lost his job about a week ago. The company, like many that would prefer not to deal with health insurance requirements... not that they say that's why, of course; it's just my hunch... is switching over many of their routes to independent contractors. Keith can keep working the same route, but for less pay. He had been told he'd receive a severance package, but that didn't come through. Boo! So he's been home all week, doing the job-hunting thing.

Having Keith home has been so lovely. He hadn't taken a day off since starting work for the company at the end of July... he even had to work Christmas night and the night of New Year's... so since even before we moved to our new place, he's been working nights (Monday night through Saturday morning) and sleeping days. He usually sleeps all day Saturday, then his one "normal" day of the week is on Sundays. Being able to be on the same schedule for an entire week now, having Keith be home in the evenings... able to help clean up dinner dishes, read to kids, get kids to bed, watch a few TV shows together... has been amaaaazing!!! Wow!! I hope so much he will be able to find daytime work. It's doubtful; it was hard in July to find a job that paid enough to support a family of five; and February is when a lot more people are laid off in this part of the country (especially those in the timber industry, etc). But I can hope and pray!

So I got pretty stressed out this week about money, of course. Because that is the logical thing to do when you have no income, I think. But I have also been through this enough times to know that I needed to trust God to be bigger. Bigger than Keith not having a job.

We have been behind on tithing... have still been keeping track of what we needed to tithe, but money has been getting tighter and tighter. So finally, early this week, I just got way too stressed out and realized, I have to just give this money to God. So we did, literally, give away a whole lot of money, to places and people that the Lord has been laying on our hearts. And one in particular is super awesome. God laid something totally new on my heart, and I've known for a few months we needed to do it. So here, this week that Keith is unemployed, we went ahead and gave all this money to this cause, and it is already turning out awesome, and I have that wonderful satisfaction and happiness that we are joining with the Lord in this particular matter, that it was something unique and precious that He wanted us to be a part of! And it was just so delightful to be able to do something this week, when I felt like wringing my hands in despair, to instead use that desperate energy to give, out of desperation, to the Lord's workings.

I was smiling so much after typing that last paragraph, remembering how sweet it is to give to Jesus, that I completely forgot why I started to share that. It is so easy to forget sometimes all the sweet little and big ways that the Lord provides for us, that I thought maybe I'd share it here this time. Well, right after giving away a significant portion of what was in our bank account, we received pretty big chunks of money, completely unexpectedly, from two different sources. Almost as much as we'd just given away! We had bought my little brother a computer last fall when he went to college, and knowing that Keith had lost his job, and he'd just received some grants, he decided to pay us back! Wow! And then, because we'd had some venison stored in Keith's parents' freezer last spring at the time of their big storage fire, and the insurance company had payed them very handsomely for that meat (really, it was ridiculous), they gave that money to us. So, both completely legitimate sources of blessing, but also completely unexpected.

God is good. He is a good provider. Sometimes money stresses me out terribly, because it feels like we will never be free of our student loans debt or the debt we still carry from when our business went under or the debt we still carry from those years when Keith was unemployed for two to five months every spring. Oh, and debt on our minivan, too. We still feel guilty for having all this debt, even though we didn't accrue it from doing anything fun like taking a trip around Europe or buying cute new clothes or something that sounds equally delightful and unnecessary. We have great interest rates on our long-term credit card debts and great rates on *most* of our student loans, but we still have debt, and it is so disappointing to have debt. I think it keeps us humble though. Well, it both keeps us in humble circumstances (ha!) and it keeps us from being prideful. We were each individually determined, as teenagers, to never ever accrue debt. We thought it sounded so stupid and unnecessary. And yet here we are! We're nine years out from graduating college, and we had thought we would somehow pay off all that student loan debt in one year, or maybe two at most. We never dreamed that we would have more debt in our early thirties than ever before, or that we would still be seeking a career path forward, or wouldn't have a church family, or wouldn't own a home.

I often wonder what it is that we are supposed to learn from all these trials. And I think that is kind of a stupid question, because God just is not a perpetual Teacher, trying to give us more and more lessons, so that we feel like school will never be over. He is our Friend. I don't think life is about understanding the answers, I think it is about knowing the Lord. Knowing Him in hard times, knowing Him in confusion and chaos and disappointment and hurt and loneliness and financial hardship. Knowing Him when we are in debt, being thankful that our debts to creditors here are only temporary, that we ultimately belong to Jesus and we are free from all sin and the eternal debt that comes from being sinners. Knowing Him when we are without a job, because our hope is not in a steady income, and we apparently need frequent reminding that He is the One, truly the only One, who provides for our needs. Knowing Him when we are without a church, so that we can be all the more grateful and appreciative and recognizing of the times when He does set the lonely in church families, and so that we can reach out with true compassion and discernment to the lonely and lost around us.

God is really good. He loves us. He cares about the details.

He has shown that in other little ways to me this week too. This morning at the church we've been going to... I hesitate to say "our church," although we've been going there for six months, because we really haven't committed, have just needed a place to be safe and hear the Word of God on Sundays... the pastor mentioned something about his wife in the sermon. Specifically, the sermon was about not slandering, and he shared how his wife always gently but firmly closes down negative conversations about others. I was feeling convicted by the sermon already, and I thought, "Wow, Lord, she sounds like a godly lady. I would really like to meet her." After the service, for the first time since we've been there, I found myself in a sitting-down conversation with someone. It was that godly pastor's wife. And in our ten-minute conversation, I was deeply encouraged by her, even to the point of tears, and I was so wholly blessed that the Lord answered my one little prayer so quickly and beautifully.

God is good! He cares about me, and He is with us, and I am thankful.