Test of Faith: The Result Show

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the impossible financial situation we were in. I chose to trust God and I was blessed with peace about the situation. And now I have a story to tell!

Here's the math:

$90 - what we were left with after paying bills
$180 - what we needed for Tom to get to work for the next two weeks
$60 - what we needed for groceries for two weeks
$82.80 - amount needed to pay a toll violation (we didn't miss the tolls on purpose) (it needed to be paid before we would get paid again, otherwise $50 would be added to each toll fee of $20.00).
5 - number of bills that still needed to be paid

So, you can see we were short by over $200 for the two weeks. Here's where the miracle begins. The following day, Tom's parents came over and brought with them a HUGE box full of food and toiletries. Later that day, they bought us another entire order of groceries. We didn't need to buy groceries for the entire two weeks!

Additionally, my parents offered to pay the toll violations. Also, my birthday was coming up and they gave me an advancement on my birthday money.

The next week we sold one of the Playstations that Tom had fixed. $225.
Bought another broken Playstation in order to continue the business: -$90
The next week we headed up to my parents where Tom trimmed the hedges and did other projects around the house: $200.
The Playstation we sold crashed for the second time. We refunded the customer. -$225.

At this point, I started to get discouraged again because I was banking on the money Tom would make trimming the hedges in order to pay the rest of our bills, but it looked like we would have to return all that money, plus some, to our customer.

Now, before I go on I have to insert that for the last 8 months the number 222 has come to mean something to me. I don't know why, but whenever I see that number I just remember God's love and faithfulness....now for the rest of the story.

Yesterday we received a check in the mail for, can you guess how much? $222!!! Praise God!!!! We now have more than enough to get us through until the next paycheck!! AND we were still able to tithe!!

It's been a wonderful two weeks of watching for God's faithfulness. All I can say is GOD IS GOOD!

Baby Bump Pics

Pre-baby

14 weeks

17 weeks

18 weeks

Not much to see here...yet. And I had to archive my pre-pregnancy belly since I will probably never see it again.

Today I'm contemplating the pain. I made the mistake of YouTubing women having contractions...ouch! Of course, these ladies weren't employing the methods I've been reading about. Even though I haven't received it yet, I am forever grateful to my cousin for sending me a relaxation method she used while she gave birth at home to her FOURTEEN POUND BABY!

I'm also contemplating the term "labor." Labor means hard work. I'm going to need some endurance for the pain and the labor...I should probably start exercising. It's tough just to walk briskly for a half hour, and that's with NO pain. Hmmm....yes, I should definitely reconsider my exercise program (or lack thereof).

Test of Faith

Whenever a pay day comes, we breathe a sigh of relief at having been able to scrape by until the last day. That relief only lasted for about the half hour it took me to pay bills today. The situation comes down to this: if all we believed and trusted in was our paycheck, then the amount of money we are left with for the next two weeks will not get my husband to work and we will not be able to buy groceries. I'm not writing this to make anyone feel sorry for us. I'm simply writing to be held accountable to faith. After a fairly brief encounter with panic over this situation, I decided that 1.) there really isn't anything we can do about the situation and 2.) I can't and won't put my body through the stress of...well, stress. I claim to believe God loves us and is faithful, now it's time to put that talk to the test. Jesus tells us not to worry about what we will eat or drink or wear. He provides for sparrows so I know he'll provide for us. It will be interesting to see it all unfold.