Gifts

Christmas is only 19 days away.  it’s the same time every year, yet it always sneaks up on us. Every year we say we will budget for it so it’s not as stressful, but with just one income you are only ever one emergency away from losing it all.  This year has been tough. I stopped working in January.

We got through the initial loss of income by withdrawing Dean’s 401K money.  The more medical things that came up the harder it got. I had surgery this year and the doctors office wouldn’t do the surgery without us paying our deductible up front. On one income that’s tough.

Point is, we’ve been struggling. I’ve shared this with some close friends, but this might be news to some of you.  The mortgage has been late more than once, one of our credit card bills is months behind.   Dave Ramsey says its better to pay your mortgage and feed your family before paying creditors so that’s the route we take, the first thing to go unpaid is usually our credit card we don’t even use anymore. it has a balance but not paying it doesn’t’ really do much except make them call us more often.

The last few months I’ve been able to earn some extra money doing some work for friends, basically doing cleaning jobs.  This is hard on my body but its helped keep us afloat.  With the holidays, we knew the kids would expect gifts under the tree. A few weeks ago when we were looking at the budget we realized we weren’t going to able to do Christmas this year.  The bills were backing up and we refuse to go into debt for presents since that will just make the problem worse.

I have been applying for jobs, sending out at least one resume a day to job postings.  I had one interview scheduled but that ended up being a waste of time.  As we get closer and closer to Christmas, my homework was piling up, and so was my stress level. Today is pay day. I was working on balancing the checkbook and was going to try to figure out what could and couldn’t get paid and how much if any we had to use for Christmas gifts.

At some point Caleb said he was going outside so I asked him to grab the mail. I opened an envelope that I wasn’t expecting.  In it was a check.  The amount really doesn’t even matter. It’s more than enough to put a few gifts for the kids under the tree and maybe some groceries so we can pay other bills with Dean’s paycheck.  I was in tears.

I hate being dependent on others for money. I hate admitting that we are struggling.  I’m not working, but it’s not for lack of trying. I’ve been putting my resume out for at least a month, I check job ads several times a day and send at least one resume out a day.  Finding something part time that fits my needs is difficult. I’m in school. I need a job that lets me be there for my kids and keep up with my homework. I need a non-physically demanding job.  This seems nearly impossible.  For weeks I’ve spent more time looking for a job then on my homework.  Because of this gift today I can take a break from job searching until after the holidays so I can focus on my school work and my family.

Earlier I said I don’t work. The truth is I don’t usually work for pay.  Every now and then I work and get paid. I spend the majority of my time serving others, doing homework, and exercising.  For me, those things are more important than a paycheck.  But, they don’t pay the bills.

I long to be in full time ministry one day,but I know that that may not happen. For weeks I was trying hard to apply for jobs that would give us the financial security we needed. When my interview was a bust earlier this week I realized maybe God was telling me to stop trying to meet our needs.  So I kept looking each day at job ads but really made it a non-priority. I started praying more.  I know God has a plan for me. For now it’s serving my family and others.

Today’s financial blessing allows me to do that, at least for a few more weeks. I am praying God will continue to provide and guide me as to what’s next. For now I’m going to keep focusing on what he has given us and the tasks he has put before me.

As I sit here looking out at the snow, I realized I’ve spent the whole day today inside. I have been still a lot today.  While sitting and being still God provided a miracle.  I think I’ll try to do more trusting in His way, which is better than ours, and stop trying so hard to make things work my way.  His way is always better than anything we can ever imagine!