My blog started spreading a bit through friends, family, and Facebook. Suddenly people were leaving gift cards, a bag of groceries, or diapers on our doorstep. Many small (but really grand) gestures. The less we had, the more I begged God to help us in any way that He could. I begged Him to rescue us, and while He would never make everything better, suddenly at the last minute the $200 I needed to pay a necessity would show up in the mail from a long-lost friend. Sometimes from strangers. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, people were helping us more and more to survive. I don’t think they new how bad we needed the help, we had lost every penny we owned, but God knew it and He always rescued us in the nick of time.
I can't explain how dark it got for me in our pit, but it was by far the most desperate and difficult time in my life, and I had suffered from depression since I was 17. I couldn’t even feel envious of a friend’s new outfit or house; I just wanted to be able to afford to go to the grocery store. It was in this time that I learned to be joyful in all circumstances. If God can take away every penny you have earned, He can take away anything. Your children’s health, your shelter, your family and your life. You begin to be thankful for what you have. I began thanking God for everything He gave us, even while waiting in line at the food bank. I also learned to be happy and not envious of others, that every one has their time and that I have no right to rob someone else of their joy because of my sorrows. At this time my faith was running so deep and my connection to God was so strong, that I saw life for what it is … a blessing. No matter how it is packaged. I had no time or room to be angry with God, I was just moving forward. Walking up the mountain of my journey one step at a time.
God was there with us. People continued to lift us up. We would receive $500 in cash, a $1000 check, or gift cards for food, completely out of the blue. We were surviving. We were paying our rent, car payments, and our medical insurance. That is love in action. Some people were friends others were someone we had barely known sometime in our life. People bought my son school supplies, a backpack, they gave us hand me downs, and shoes. I couldn’t even afford to put shoes on my child's feet. Now I was accepting anything and everything people gave us, because I had to for my kids. I had never let people help us before this time, but always preached that they needed to let me bless them in their hard times. Now I was living my own words.
I also noticed that I was slowly changing into the woman I always wanted to be. It was amazing to see that the woman I had always wanted to be had nothing to do with what I owned. God taught me that. God changed my heart in the most profound ways and He met me in my darkness. He slowly molded me into a stay-at-home mom, it took a long time but He did it and I cherish that more than words. He helped me make hard decisions that didn’t make sense but taught me to follow His whispers instead of logic. He made me less bitter, less fearful and less angry. He changed my soul, my desires and my worth. He slowly became the most loving kind of teacher I could imagine. Like I said, God broke me down but He built me up. He took it all away, let me sit in the dark, taught me to fight for myself, and then emerge a new person. But what He did most was tell me that all of the pain was for good and the way that I decided to accept my circumstances would completely determine the outcome. He cannot save us, unless we trust Him and then meet Him there.
I became available to hear Him at night, through prayer, in my prayer journal, in the His word, at bible studies, at church, and in books and devotions. God throws us lifelines and guidebooks all of the time; we just have to see them. God spoke to me a lot. When I started piecing everything together, I saw that by handling the darkest situations with faith it would allow me to grow even more.
That was just a small snippet of my talk earlier this month.
Isn't it amazing how God worked in our lives? Loving people pulled us through this year. An amazing couple who barely knew us gave us $1500 in Costco gift cards over 6 months so that we could feed the kids and buy necessities. One of my best friends saved a little bit of her own money every month and one day gifted us over $1000 in cash to help us pay part of our rent on one of the hardest months. A friend I had not seen or spoken to since junior high (16 years) sent us a $500 gift card, the first gift we ever received. A woman whom Mark had worked with ten years ago sent us a $500 check just because she wanted to help. A friend in Hawaii sent us $500 because God put it on her heart one night. A friend handed me a $250 check because she "had a feeling" and it happened to be the day before rent was due, I had been $250 short with no hope in sight. I can go on and on, and I will if you ever want proof of love and miracles. When I had NOTHING, people gave us everything. I prayed to stay in our home, I prayed to feed our kids, I prayed to get us through and they did it, He did it. I can still say, with all certainty, that even though that seems like a lot of money, I still have no idea exactly how we paid all of our necessary bills for a family of five for ten months. It makes no sense that it could have been done, even with all of the generosity, yet it was. It was our own miracle. An envelope in the mail, a knock on the door, or a phone call, all unexpectedly changed our lives over and over again. And God is still giving us little financial miracles every day, He is still getting us through until we can be on our own completely again. He is still giving us joy through it all. He is using others to see us through.
If you are hesitant to believe in God ... I have proof He exists. But my proof lies in faith, the kind you have when you know that God didn't abandon you when everything was taken away. Because I can see in all of the emptiness how He saved us. The proof lies in all of the miracles we experienced day in and day out. Not one of those miracles could be considered anything less, and don't dare call them coincidences.
I now hold my faith up high and my story in my palms for anyone to see.
I beleive!!
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