New Testimony to Share :)

It's been awhile since I blogged! I've been maintaining my weight loss, and I've moved on to accomplishing other life goals. My husband and I started taking a course together back in September called Crown Financial Ministries. It is through our church. For those of you who are not familiar with Crown Financial, it is a bible-based course about handling your finances God's way. Going into the course, I already knew quite a bit about God's plan for our finances, because I read a book some years ago which was actually called 'God's Plan For Your Finances'. However, my practical application of God's plans for my finances had basically gone down the toilet. Though I've always been good with money (my father is a stock-broker, who always instilled the "pay yourself first" motto), I entered into a marriage with a shopaholic. After 12 years of marriage, I grew tired of butting heads and I think we've both kind of met somewhere in the middle with our attitudes about money. I went from being a complete tightwad to living this free-spirit, willy-nilly kind of lifestyle and very little regard to money. Since my husband and I both work, we check our balance frequently and it seems that there is always money there. We got into a really bad habit of spending it, though, before paying the bills :-0. Now I'm not a big spender, but I do buy my children whatever they need. And sometimes they 'need' things all at once, such as soccer dues (x2), uniforms, dance dues, lunch money, haircuts (x2), ... the list goes on and on, but you catch my drift. And another priority in our home is always groceries. I will say that I do and have always shopped at WalMart for groceries to save money, and I still believe that this is the most effective. I buy mostly WalMart brand products, which I find is cheaper than going to Kroger or Food Lion and using coupons. But our bills always came last. And when it was bill-time, we would get stuck picking and choosing (juggling) which ones to pay. We grew tired of living that way, because it was very stressful.
 
So... we made the decision to enter into this committment of taking the class together. I will admit that, at first, it was a bit of a pain... you know, ANOTHER thing we have to do during the week, another thing to add to our already over-loaded schedule.... And the homework for the class is no joke. You have to read the Bible, answer questions, and memorize Scripture. Most of the information started to come back to me as I began to do the work. What I had forgotten over the course of the past few years is that 100% of everything I have is GOD's and not mine. It's his money, and I am supposed to be a good steward of HIS money. Well, that was tough one to swallow, even though I'd heard it before, I'm not going to lie. I am also being very honest when I say that I've struggled with tithing throughout the years. I've done it inconsistently in the last year, even though I've experienced huge blessings from doing it consistently in the past. It's like that line in that Christian song, "I throw a 20 in the plate, but never give til it hurts" (Matthew West). After completing the lesson on tithing and giving, I felt really convicted to start tithing consistently again. As I said, I've done this in the past, and it was a real source of tension between my husband and I at the time. He has come a long way spiritually since then. So, with his blessing, I woke up that Monday morning (payday) and immediately got a money order for 10% of my income. My reason for getting a money order was so that I did not spend it and was not able to tear it up. I also wrote the name of the church on it so that I would not be able to cash it. I stuck it on our refrigerator for my husband and I to see and to pray about it.

Now I have to admit, I was not a happy camper. God says to give cheerfully, not begrudgingly. But I just kept looking at that money order, thinking, "that's grocery money", or "that would have paid such-n-such bill". I began to worry over it, which God says not to do. He wants us to trust Him. And to test Him. After taking that money out and setting it aside, I paid our bills like a responsible adult. The wee hours of the next morning, I was awakened by a bone-chilling nightmare about Satan. It was so real, and quite disturbing. As a matter of fact, it stuck with me for the entire day. The next day, we only had $66 left in our account. This was TWO days after I got paid! NOT COOL! I was used to having much more money (but what I didn't realize is that I was also used to not having the bills paid, either). That night, I went to my Crown Financial class and shared with my fellow classmates what I had done and how worried I was feeling. I told them about my nightmare, and they confirmed what I already thought; Satan was trying to attack me, because I was trying to obey the Lord. A classmate encouraged me to just Trust and Test the Lord, and that's what I decided to do. I figured, at least the bills are paid. We DO have money in savings, if I need to transfer that over to cover the low balance...

The following day, I had an appointment with one of my mentally ill clients. She happens to be bipolar and by far my most difficult client. I prayed in the car on the way to her house for God to give me the words and the wisdom to reach her that day. It ended up being one of the best sessions we have ever had. And i was able to reach my client with the gospel. I feel that that was God's blessing to me for being obedient to Him. This was Thursday, and we only had $46 left in our account. We had ourselves on a complete spending FREEZE. But I trusted God, and I also knew that my husband was getting paid the very next day, and we were going to be OK!

Now for the big praise report... Friday morning, I woke up and immediately checked our bank balance. I wanted to be SURE my husband's paycheck was in there! Imagine my surprise when I saw that there was nearly $6,000 in our checking account. Ok, so we went from $46 to $6,000 overnight?!?! I believe I started shaking, crying, and praising God so fast and hard some might say I was speaking in tongues . Not only had my husband gotten paid, he had also received a huge bonus. God knew that he needed to act, and fast... and that is exactly what He did. What is even more amazing is that my husband immediately agreed with me that this was an act of God and that we needed to tithe 10% of what He had provided for us.

My purpose of this story is not to be boastful or bragging, but to share that if you are faithful to the Lord, then He will be faithful to you. We put the bonus money into our savings account to help us pay for some major house repairs, nothing to be jealous of. We are just so thankful for the Lord's provision and His perfect timing. We continue to live paycheck to paycheck like most of the country. But I will tell you one thing, we will be tithing from now on, not to just receive blessings, but to give God a fraction of what is 100% His anyway, and to prove our faithfulness to Him. God is so good...