29 July 2009

More Times of Struggle - Our Journey of Obedience Continues

As the days grew nearer to the birth of our second child, our stress levels continued to rise. Daniel still didn't have a full time job as of the beginning of April 2003. God continued to provide for our EVERY need. In fact, during these months, Daniel's Grandma wrote us a check every month from the small amount of money she lived on. It was for a nice sum and a sacrifice for her, yet she felt that this is what she was supposed to do. Family and friends were praying for us continually. Sometimes money would show up in the mail that we were not anticipating. God's timing is always perfect. I can remember one time when there was a doctor's appointment that I had to go to and wasn't sure where the money was coming from in order to pay for it. We had asked for prayer in a general manner in our Sunday school class and did not mention that we needed money. Immediately after class and just before the service started, one of our single friends from our Sunday school class walked up to us and handed us a check. It more than covered the expenses that we were anticipating. Once again, I sobbed as I realized that something I was stressing over was not necessary. I had wavered in my faith and had doubted that God was going to provide for us. In that moment, I was humbled in a way that I often had not been. How foolish I had been to think that God was not going to take care of this need as well!

Daniel found a job for a pest control company sometime in late April 2003. I continued to babysit right up until the day before I gave birth to our son. The C-section was scheduled for Friday, May 16. The night before this exciting day, Daniel and I went to Target to buy diapers for the newborn, as well as a few other things. While we wandered around the store for our last night as a family of 3, Daniel received a phone call from his Dad. Apparently, his Dad's brother (Daniel's uncle in Colorado) had mailed something to Daniel's parents' house. His uncle did not have our address, but wanted to send a "little" something in celebration of the birth of our second child. Daniel told his Dad to open the envelope. I watched his reaction as he listened to his Dad read the enclosed letter. His face went from smiling, to shock, to complete and utter disbelief. I think there were even a few tears in my husband's eyes. I found out after what seemed like an eternal five minute conversation that Daniel's uncle not only wrote a very nice letter, but also enclosed a check for $500! Remember this was the day before my C-section and we figured we would put the co-pay on one of our credit cards. Guess what the amount of the co-pay was? $500!!! Unbelievable, especially considering the timing, the large amount of money, and the fact that this is not a relative that Daniel is especially close to.

As many know, this was only one more step in our journey of obedience. The story has many more elements to it. Obedience to the Lord and striving to follow Him daily continues to be something that we are working on. One of my primary reasons for starting this blog is not only to share with others how God works in our life, but also as a reminder to myself of His faithfulness to me and to my family.

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

Matthew 6:25-34 NKJV

26 July 2009

Obedience is not easy...

Five years ago this week, my husband and I, along with our 2-year-old daughter, 1 year-old son, and father-in-law and mother-in-law arrived in Pennsylvania after a 7 day journey across the country from the Phoenix, AZ area. It was a long week, filled with much adventure and even more anticipation. The kids screamed every time we placed them in their car seats for another long day's journey. I marveled at the many different areas of the country I had never seen in my 28 years of life. Daniel and I talked with his parents about what our new life might possibly be like. We had only seen the area we were moving to once before, 3 months prior when we flew out without the kids for our second interview with the school we were soon to be officially employed by. My in-laws had seen the area many years previously when they were in the same town on a family vacation. They were along to help us to settle in for a week before our training started.

This was the start of our new life. I couldn't believe it. We were the least likely of any of our siblings to move away from our family, our friends, our church. Moving away is one thing. Moving 2600 miles away is another. Most days I was excited about our fresh start. Other days I wondered about my sanity. Ultimately I kept coming back to our reason for moving in the first place. Obedience. Plain and simple. Obedience. God called us to this new life. In order to understand what it is we do and our journey to this place in our lives, I need to go even further back in time...back to when our first daughter was born.

In 2002, shortly after the birth of our oldest child, Daniel and I both felt the Lord leading us to quit our jobs as public school teachers. I had always dreamed of being a stay-at-home mom, but had no idea how to make this work with the debt we had incurred. We turned in our resignations at the beginning of April that year. I was already on maternity leave for 13 weeks and finished off the last 3 weeks of the school year. I packed up my classroom, then ended up teaching part-time for 4 weeks during the summer in a different district. The plan was for Daniel to find a higher paying job in the business world, and I would provide child care in our home for a teacher friend's child (who was a mere 8 weeks younger than our daughter). Daniel found a job working with someone from our church and I prepared our house for the invasion of a second infant. Sounds like a doable plan, right?

Let's just say that the plan worked, but not always in the way WE had intended it to. I found out when our daughter was only 6 months old that I was pregnant with baby #2. Right about this time I had also taken on a neighbor's 1-year-old part-time. Hmmmm...caring for 3 children, ages 1-year-old or less and pregnant! My days were filled with changing diapers, feeding babies, cleaning up, changing more diapers, feeding babies again, changing more diapers...you get the picture. I was utterly exhausted most days.

Fast forward a few months. Daniel had lost his initial job and was unemployed. He substituted and looked for a more permanent job in the meantime. Life was certainly stressful. Despite this, I remember these times fondly because we began to see God work in our life in a way we never had before. Money was scarce and bills were plenty. Our savings account was slowly dwindling to nothing and we wondered many days how we were going to make the next mortgage payment.

One day I sat at the kitchen table, praying to God that He would provide a way for us to buy a few groceries. We were not going hungry, but our cupboards were looking a little sparse. A short time later, I walked down the street to check the mail. I sat down at the same spot at the kitchen table and began to sort through the many envelopes. One of the first things I opened was a card from a family at church. They encouraged us to keep trusting in the Lord and told us they were praying for us. I smiled at their encouragement and love for us, then looked down at something that had fallen out of the card. A gift card for $50 to a local grocery store! I balled my eyes out for about 5 minutes, thanking and praising God with every part of my being. The Creator of the Universe cared enough about me to answer my measly little prayer for a way to buy some food. I had been a Christian since I was a young child, but this was seriously a huge turning point in my relationship with the Lord.

This was only the beginning of many more times where God's protection and care in my family's life was completely evident. He has travelled with us (and often carried us) through some pretty difficult points in our lives. Yes, our journey to Pennsylvania was (and is still!) an adventure, but it was also (and continues to be) filled with trials of all sorts. More snapshots from our journey of obedience to follow in future posts.