Who Is My Provider?

Today turned into a stressful day.  Bills are piling up.  Money that I had thought would be paid to us wasn't paid in the amount I thought.  Through a series of events, I find us having to pay out more than I had budgeted.  One agreed upon amount for a bill was suddenly doubled.  It all weighs on me.  I am still purchasing homeschool curriculum, a little per week, because I didn't have the funds at tax time.

As everything seems to get heavier and heavier, I feel panic rising up in me.  How will we pay for food?  How will we ever cover all that we owe?  Doubts wash through me, paralyzing me.

And yet, I have to trust God.  He is our provider.  He has come through many times before.  It is difficult to accept some days, but He comes through in His timing, and not my own.

Earlier this week we were unexpectedly blessed when the lady that tutors my step-daughter in math stopped charging us.  We were going to have to let her go because we just couldn't afford the money to pay her.  My husband went over to her house to give her a final check, and to discuss payment arrangements for the curriculum Jasmine had already used.  She met him at the door.  He barely got words out of his mouth before she told him to "Just send her." 

"We were blessed by new positions, granting us more income. I am determined to bless others."  She told my husband. 

My husband and I both had been praying about what to do.  As much as this lady had helped us through the years, we didn't want to let her go.  There just wasn't any way to financially keep paying her.  It was a true answer to prayer to know that we don't owe that money every week, and yet Jasmine was going to still be helped when needed.

So, as things seem, in the natural, to be getting tough, I am determined to keep trusting God. 

I came across this article titled, Can God Provide? Even Beyond the Budget.  In this article, the author writes how, during trying times in her family economically, she began writing in a notebook the ways that God provided.  It helped her to realize that God did take care of them way beyond her husband's paycheck.  Some of the things she listed brought tears to my eyes.  Here is just a sample of what she listed:

God provided clothing for my children all year long through people who just felt led to give us things though we never expressed a need.
 Ruth asked for roller blades for her birthday, but we could not afford them, and we prayed about that with her. We told her that if God provided for roller blades, that would be the only way she would get them. Later that week, a lady from church put a bag of clothes for the little ones in our car during Wednesday night service and in the bag was a nearly new pair of roller blades in her size! Praise God, and what a testimony to her! Roller blades are hardly a "need" but God even heard that "want" that she had and met it. She considers those the "roller blades that GOD gave me". 
Last year we had some Christmas presents (which were things like an ornament for each child, a box of crayons, a sketch pad, etc. nothing fancy), but we mostly focused on celebrating the first coming of the Lord and looking to His second coming. The children asked us if we could do Christmas like that again every year-it was "way more fun." They all want crayons again for Christmas. 
Someone this past week gave us a couch, and it matches our living room! 
God has managed to help me to be a better steward of the grocery money, feeding our family on $50-80 a week, while extending hospitality nearly monthly and having enough left over for additional offerings weekly.  
God provided some additional homeschooling materials that I had "want" of (I could have improvised and was planning to, but God met that "want"), in the math program I use, without me mentioning this to anyone but Him and my husband. I also recieved a bag full of school supplies, which we can always use. 
We got a lot of free bricks to use for landscaping (also a want that was met without expressing it).



I think I will do the same thing.  It's easy to forget how God came through in the past.  Last year, our pastor at church was teaching on tithing.  He told the church to trust God and tithe, and if they couldn't pay their bills, he would return the tithe money plus 10%.  Many of us trusted God, and no one asked for money back.  Then, over the next few months, we slacked off, we stopped being obedient and trusting God's promises.  For my husband and I, we kept tithing, but we stopped giving extra.  God had told me to give extra every month.  When finances got too difficult, I stopped giving what I had been giving before.  That is when all our difficulties compounded. 

So, determined to trust God, even when it doesn't make sense, even when the budget says there is no way we will survive, I will begin my list of ways God provides.  I will give him my fears and stresses, and learn to wait on Him and be satisfied with what He blesses me with.  To be honest, I don't mind scrimping and living simply.  I just don't like living in fear.  It brings fear to my heart to think that we won't be able to make it, to pay the bills, to take care of our children. 

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline."  2 Timothy 1:7(NLT)

God does not want me to live in fear.  I have to take Him at His Word, and trust that He will provide.  I look forward to seeing how He does it.