My pal Brittany posted a very similar blog last month and I've thought about it ever since. I've thought how wonderful it is that God sees fit to bestow miracles upon us as we obey Him.
Lots of things happened to bring us to a very bad place yesterday morning. I won't chronicle all of them, suffice it to say that Moe's check had finally become available in the checking account (thanks, long weekend!) and I paid all of our bills. It was a good bill-paying, too, because we actually had money left over, which is always nice. Then, just to be safe, I checked the other check register (yeah, I have two, but I use one almost exclusively) just to make sure that I hadn't missed anything. I had. I figured it all out and we were in the hole ninety some-odd dollars and pay day isn't for another ten days. Frick. We had no cash on hand; no money socked away, nothing for a rainy day. Additionally, I had paid all of my bills online and you can't take that stuff back.
Note: Yeah, we're still stupid and we're still learning. This is embarrassing to write but it gets better, I promise. Don't judge.
Anyway, distraught does not quite cover how I felt all day yesterday. My diabetes is out of whack, therefore my insulin is out of whack and insulin is a hormone so therefore my hormones have been, you guessed it, out of whack. It's been stressful. On top of all the crazy emotions that I've been fighting every day, I behaved like a complete idiot last week, did some stupid crap, said some even stupider crap and in the process learned that honesty really isn't the best policy when you're dealing with personal opinions of another person's behavior. Did you know that not everyone likes to hear what other people think about them? Yeah, shocker. I'm an idiot, but at least I've learned that lesson. It's been a tough lesson to learn and the situation is not fully resolved. I fear that in my idiocy I have forever closed a door on some relationships that I cherish.
So, let's sum up what we've got so far, shall we?
- Emotions: out of whack
- Hormones: out of whack
- Judgment: out of whack
- Finances: out of whack
- Personal relationships: out of whack
- Life: pretty stinking whacktacular
This brings me to yesterday. Financial ruin, checks will soon start bouncing like a twelve-year-old at a bar and there's not a thing to be done about it.
Then I remembered the $100 in cash that I had set aside for tithing. Hmm. I talked with Moe. We could always use the $100 in the bank account and pay the tithing later. But we have been taught that we pay our tithing first, even if we don't feel we have the money and then trust in God to take care of us. We prayed for quite a while and I'm a little ashamed at how hard it was to make the decision. But once we knew, we knew. That wasn't our money to use. We had set it aside for tithing and using it for anything other than tithing would be disobedience.
Once the decision was made, it really didn't lessen my stress level. I was trying to have faith that all would work out, but I just couldn't figure out how. I talked with a friend about it and she suggested calling my Relief Society president. I hesitated, knowing that she would go to the bishop. I was already embarrassed enough at the situation and I didn't want to go running to the church to bail us out of a hole that we had dug ourselves. I finally called the RS president, if only because she always asks me why I never call her when things go wrong. She said that she would call the bishop, ask his opinion and then get back with me.
She called back a few minutes later and said that the bishop thought that we should put the tithing money into our checking account as it would be too late by the time he was able to do anything for us. Then we could talk with him on Sunday and figure out how to handle the issue of the tithing. I was still on the phone with the RS president as I sat down at the computer to check the bank account before I headed into town to deposit the money. There was a deposit of $100 in our account that neither I nor my husband had made. The checks that we had written and forgotten about hadn't cleared yet so there were no overdraft fees and that $100 deposit made it so that once everything had cleared we would still be in the black. We would have less than $10, but there wouldn't any overdraft fees. I told the RS president who got a little choked up. I was too stunned to cry (which will shock you if you know me at all).
I went through the evening feeling buoyed on a cloud of obedience and blessings. All I could think was "Wow."
Today came and I settled down to the task of trying to figure out a way to get a little bit of cash to get us through until the next pay day. The mystery deposit solved the immediate crisis, but there was still the matter of needing money to pay for gasoline and other necessities for the next several days.
To make a long story short(er), I received orders for two quilts this afternoon and one of the women paid me $60 in advance.
After Moe and I had made the decision not to use our tithing money to save our bacon, I tried to relax and have faith but I just could not see any way that we were going to get the money. I knew that things would work out, even if "work out" meant that we would end up with six overdraft fees that would eat up the next pay check but I would survive. That doesn't sound like the most pleasant way for things to work out, but again, I had faith that God would provide.
Provide he did, and in a most spectacular and obvious way. I think He wanted to make sure that I saw His hand in it. I did, and thanks.
Now the thought that is niggling at the corners of my brain is this: Why do we ever choose anything but the way we know to be right? If God has promised, he will come through.
I am proof.
