Tuesday, June 12, 2007

God's faithfulness to my family, part 3

God makes a lot of promises in his word, and I think I may still be on the beginning of that journey of understanding him, learning to trust him, and so on. One way that God has CLEARLY showed his goodness is taking care of our roof and stomach needs. Like I stated before, finances was the biggest area we needed God, and it was also the target of our prayers to God. So naturally, God has taught us a good deal about himself though this avenue.

The story ended last time where I received a raise at work as my wife's unemployment ran dry. Things were well and we were highly anticipating the birth of our daughter. Now, we were still a bit worried about paying for the whole thing, and then we found out that Reece was in a breech position (she was upside down). A doctor will not deliver a breech baby unless the Mom has birthed other children naturally without complication. That was not the case with us. Reece never moved from that position, and the doctor informed us that if she never moved, a cessarian birth would be necessary (a very expensive surgery that is NOT covered by our health insurance if it is pre-scheduled). So now we are looking at a pre-scheduled surgery that both very expensive and not covered unless it was spur of the moment emergency. We had no choice but to just hand the situation over to God and ask for him to make a way for us. Our concern shifted from fear to trust, and we could focus on what mattered, the health of our baby! To make a long story short, the insurance deemed the procedure medically necessary and covered it! The amount we were able to save up while we both worked was the same amount that we had to pay out of pocket for these medical bills. I am having a really hard time at this point thinking that this is all coincidence. Obviously the baby was born and healthy as can be, and we are extremely blessed to be the parents of such a cool little kid. Keep reading, it still gets better.

Things worked out well for a while. But guess what? Once again we found ourselves short on the supply of cash. Let me say this to be clear: we were NOT overspending on clothes or entertainment or food or the like, we were paying bills that are a part of necessary every day life, such as utilities, mortgage, car, phone, food, new baby needs, etc. Sure, we may have rented a movie or two, but fun money was low dollar, and infrequent. Anyways, here came ANOTHER time that we had to trust God, so we did. Any guesses what happened next? Yup, another income source plopped into our laps. Our friends have a neighbor who needed childcare a few days per month. Lets just say that the amount we needed to cover everything JUST happened to be what she would get paid to watch this other little girl. Thing continued this way for quite some time until the Dad lost his job. Marlena was unpaid for about six weeks, which creates a significant shortage in monthly income. Again we trust God to come through for us. Just as the fridge was looking barren and we were eating cereal for breakfast again, we were gifted by Marlena's parents with a check. They had give some money to their other child for something and felt that they should also give a similar amount to us (I personally disagreed with this thinking, but they were insistant on giving it, so I would not turn down a meaningful gift). That money filled the gas tank, filled the fridge, and brought us through to the following month where I got five paychecks and everything fit. Now she is watching this girl again, and as of today, all is very well.

Here is the point: for something like this to happen OVER and OVER and OVER is NOT coincidence. This IS the work of God, and I write this as a reminder to myself that I can trust him in this part of my life, but if I can trust him here, I can trust him with ANYTHING. But the other reason I write this is so that those of you who know us can also be confident in how God works. I say this to myself as I say it to you: Realize your need of God, confess that you can't do it on your own, ask him to be your good Father who takes care of his children, don't be unwise, follow his commandments, then believe he will come through for you. HE WILL. I don't know what part four will be, but I know the end of the story, I have a feeling it will involve the word "again" a few times :)

Friday, June 01, 2007

I have been distant

kinda. Well, if we are friends, then we should have communicated in alternate fashions by now. but if you want to see some stupid internet video debates, you are welcome to view em: http://www.youtube.com/DaveKerwin77

I can't promise anything about them being enjoyable though.