A Season of Provision

I had mentioned in a previous blog about the hardship that our family has been enduring for the past several months. It has been since October 31 since we have received a full pay check. Many of the weeks in between there has been no income whatsoever. Our business has slowed dramatically due to reasons including the recession, the holidays and the winter months. We always expect the winter months to slower but throwing in the other issues has been very difficult. Several weeks ago in Sunday School I requested prayer for our company and our family. I asked that God bless us and acknowledged that He is our Jehovah Jireh. We know that everything that we have or ever will have is given by His hand. The list of events that followed that prayer has changed our lives. It has given us proof that we serve a LIVING God and that He hears our prayers. He cares for the largest and smallest of our wants and needs. He also has revealed to us Himself through His body in the church. We were amazed at how our church family stepped up to help. I want to point out before I begin that we never asked for ANY of these things. That God sent His ministers (servants) to us in our time of need.

The following is not necessarily in chronological order.

1. A lasagna dinner when we had nothing to eat for supper.

2. A freezer full of Venison that fed our family meat for a couple weeks.

3. A Thanksgiving food basket that contained enough food to supply more than a weeks worth of groceries.

4. A specific cash paying job that paid for milk and bread when we had none.

5. A cooler of leftover food that supplied our desires for a sandwich one day after church. See the blog entry "God Loves Club Sandwiches".

6. A Chicken Alfredo Dinner with desert and extras.

7. A large roast beef dinner with a box of Cheetos and a bulk supply of Mac and Cheese. We are still feasting on it.

8. Two ladies brought a weeks worth of groceries to our house one Sunday after church. We had no idea they were coming when they showed up. We were praying that day for God to provide food for the week. This was a silent prayer for our family. No one knew but us.

9. We were out of bread when a family member sent over bread and PB for the kids. She also sent Patrick's favorite cereal without even knowing he liked it.

10. We had a food basket at Christmas that had just the food staples we needed to keep up. It also had a turkey that lasted for 3 dinners. Patrick does not eat or like turkey but he said this was the best he'd had.

11. Our phone bill was due (and late)and needed to be paid on a day that we had not a dime to our name. We just happened to get a paycheck that week that covered that bill, another one, AND groceries.

12. Our church paid our house payment and KUB for December.

13. Our church paid our house payment and KUB for January.

14. We had a HUGE plumbing issue right at Christmas. We did not have a dime. God let me borrow the money from a family member and pay it back within a 3 day time span.

15. Some friends of ours won a dinner for four at a NICE restaurant in Pigeon Forge. They called and asked US to be their guests. We had a HUGE dinner with friends and got to talk about and glorify our amazing God for several hours that night.

16. One week when I had to find a way to feed 5 people for $40, I found a sale on split chicken breasts in a family pack for $0.88 lb. We were able to eat for over a week on that purchase.

17. Some precious members of our church family bought gifts for our kids for Christmas.

18. Just before Christmas a friend from my Sunday School class brought us a HUGE basket of baked goodies and treats. The kids even said it was like Halloween but with Christmas stuff. She also included a $50 Ingle's gift card that fed the five of us for the week.

Believe it or not there has been more. We have learned invaluable lessons on life. We learned how to bundle up and be warm without turning up the heat. We have learned the MANY uses of a bucket when you have no outgoing water in the house. We have also been full off a dinner that was stretched to cover more than one night. We have learned TRUE meaning in the words of God is great, God is good, Let us thank Him for our food. We have heard our children say this was the best Christmas ever, when they got less than any year before. We have felt the gift of friends and know that Clarence the angel from the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" was right when he said "No man is a failure who has friends". We found this out and also felt like George Bailey himself...."the richest man in town."