He's Always Been Faithful

Since my part-time work is mainly substitute teaching, summer is a time for more creative budgeting. I also teach swim lessons which helps. But, all in all, as long as we have a plan for our money at the beginning of each month, it's no problem. In conversation today, I mentioned that we've got $40 until I get paid for this next set of swim lessons, so I would wait on whatever purchase we were discussing.

The amount of $40 brought to mind a time when things were much different. When we moved to Abilene, we were not financially in a place to be making a move. And Dave Ramsey (my favorite financial guru)says that if you spend all of your emergency cash getting into a house, then Murphy (as in Murphy's Law) is going to come move into your front bedroom. Did he ever. The flood came 6 months after we moved into the house. State Farm took care of us very well, but is required to give that check to the mortgage company. The mortgage company, in turn, parcels out the check in increments as the work on the house is completed. Obviously, this protects the mortgage company's interest as well as ours since, technically, they own way more of the house than we do. So we were paying mortgage and utilities on a home we couldn't live in, a few months of the time we did live here, but had no kitchen, gasoline back and forth, my cell phone was the only phone we had. It all started to add up.

In the middle of this we received notice that we were being sued for several thousand dollars by the people that purchased our home in Temple. We still believe we are/ were right but a court fight would cost more than simply several thousand dollars. It didn't matter -- at the time, we didn't have it.

The eating out, the utilities, the gasoline, the cell phone bill -- we just kept pulling out of savings or putting it on the credit card. Here's where $40 sounded familiar. At one point, we were way over the limit on our credit card and had $40 in savings. I remember telling God -- I don't know how you're going to pull this one off, but I have to have faith that you will. And He did. I'm ashamed that I don't remember exactly how at this point (I think a family member dropped a check in the mail just for funsies).

As my friend Donna Leavelle tells me, "if you have problems that money can solve, then you don't really have problems." I try to remember that, but more importantly I try to remember that He's always been faithful. It calls to mind one of my favorite songs. I have a recording by Zoe Group, but I'm not sure who wrote it. My apologies to the writer because it's gorgeous:

Morning by morning I wake up to find
the power and comfort of God's hand in mine.
Season by season I watch him amazed, in
awe of the mystery of his perfect ways

All I have need of his hand will provide.
He's always been faithful to me

I can't remember a trial or a pain
he did not recycle to bring me gain.
I can't remember one single regret
in serving God only and trusting his hand

All I have need of his hand will provide.
He's always been faithful to me

This is my anthem, this is my song, the
theme of the stories I've heard for so long.
God has been faithful, he will be again.
His loving compassion, it knows no end.

All I have need of his hand will provide.
He's always been faithful to me

May I always remember His faithfulness and testify to His grace.