God Always Provides!

In the past couple of posts, I have shared what God has been doing in my life this summer. Getting baptized, joining a life group, deciding to come home and everything that has come with that such as the relationships that were made, and restored. Not to mention the wonders that God has been doing in my life, touching people with simple actions, and being there when they needed me the most.

But I wanted to share what God did so recently! However, in order to understand, there has to be a little backstory.

Backstory:

At the end of my eighth grade year a series of unfortunate circumstances led to my Dad’s back being broken and him being on workman’s compensation.  This started a whole series of events, leading my family to constantly be struggling financially.

Of course being fourteen years old, and never having had a job in my life I didn’t really understand what workman’s compensation really meant. I knew that we would be shorter on money for a while, but I figured once my Dad had his surgery, and recovered, he would be back on the job and working again.

All would be fine.

But it wasn’t. Fast forward to the end of the summer right before my sophomore year. I was then fifteen, and my Dad had finally had his surgery. Almost a year and a half later, the surgery happened and was successful. My thought was that things were supposed to be getting better at that point.

During the time of waiting for my father to recover, I had friends that God blessed me with. These friends were very understanding and supportive; they made this time of life a lot easier. They had surprise birthday parties for me; they paid for movie dates, took me shopping and out to dinner. They were on call whenever I needed to get out. They were truly a blessing.

Long story short, Dad never healed. There was permanent nerve damage and… blah blah blah…

It goes on and on.

Many times Dad kept talking about what was going on, and I would tune it out. My options were tune it out, or be depressed from more bad news.

I knew enough of what was going on, to know that we were not in a good situation. Mom would gain a job and then lose one, each time she was never able to save any money she was earning because she was busy recovering from the damage Dad’s shortened checks had done.

Fast forward to my life in college. Typically a college student lives their time in college as “poor and starving,” but mine was the opposite. It’s not that I was rich and had money flowing as soon as I walked onto campus, but I was extremely blessed coming into college. I had enough money to get by, enough to keep me fed on the weekends and buy medicine when I was sick.

For the first time in my life I wasn’t really worried about money, I was just worried about school and typical problems that come with being a student in any school that has joined a club, had a job and – at the time – a long distance relationship.

That brings me to this summer…

Summer of 2014:

Being in college, I got out of school almost a month and a half before everyone else. I already shared about my decision to come home and how it was extremely last minute, but God just told me that he had work that needed to be done through me back at home. So I packed my bags, and came home hoping for healing from a messed up relationship, and restoring other relationships while creating new ones. If God was going to call me home, my expectations of the summer were extremely high. I decided to just sit back and let God work in my life, and while following his leading.

Quickly into summer, my Mother got a short job. This was good news considering all my siblings wanted to do this year. They both wanted to go to their separate camps, and Bethany was saving up for a Mexico mission’s trip.

During this time, Mom thought she was doing well, keeping up with all the payments that came along with it. However, somewhere along the lines something got messed up, and once again they were relying on both of my parents paychecks to get by.

For me, it seemed like nothing to worry about, they were used to living paycheck to paycheck, but one Tuesday, one of my Dad’s paychecks didn’t show up.

At first it wasn’t that heavy of a blow, but then the next week passed, and the week after that. I came home from work, exhausted and wanting nothing more than food and rest, and all Dad could talk about what how much trouble my parents were in. He finished off with, “my check didn’t arrive today…” After that I decided not to spend time with the family and instead go down to my room.

The emotions hit all at once, I just grabbed a snack and turned on my DVD player to watch whatever episode of New Girl I had stopped on. I sent out a status on facebook, asking for everyone to pray for my family, and honestly instead of getting into the bible, and looking for some comfort from it’s words I just sat on my bed, numb, trying not to feel and desperately wanting to go back to college where my worries often had my own solution.

There were many likes on the status, and everyone asking privately what was going on. To some I explained everything, to others I explained very little. Others didn’t even ask, and just prayed. Right before I fell asleep, I remember telling God that he was the only one that can get us out of this situation, and that I needed his help.

The following day, I was still answering questions about what was going on, but most of it had faded. Although the questions had stopped, my parents seemed to be at each others throats with the stress of what was or wasn’t happening. So that night before Wednesday night church, Dad had come with us, and I couldn’t take his snippy little comments anymore. When we arrived at the park, waiting for my siblings to get out of tutoring, I got out of the car and went to read my book, not saying a word.

That was when the first blessing came out of nowhere. I almost cried as I opened a letter that contained enough cash to get me through the week if I did end up having to give my parents my pay check. I read the letter, and thanked God for the person who gave it to me. Feeling a little bit better about the situation, I still refused to listen to the bickering or the depressing comments so when we got to church, I sat down and started reading all over again.

A couple minutes later, Ethan, one of the friends that I had made this summer, said hi and gave me a hug. He knew that there was something going on and that it wasn’t good, but he didn’t know any details. I didn’t expect much of him, except maybe to pray for the family, because I knew that he was already praying. I had no expectations of him to ask how the family was doing, or how I was doing, although judging by what I had noticed in his character, I shouldn’t have expected anything less.

Right after he said hi, he asked how I was doing, and how the family was doing. Which shocked me, but it honestly shouldn’t have.

I didn’t want to lie to him, but I knew Dad wanted to keep the details of the situation quiet, so I answered him honestly. “We are hanging in there, I mean it’s frustrating, and you can tell that my parents are stressed about it, but you know...”

He just nodded, and said “well God always provides.” I nodded and smiled, “yes he does.”

Later that night while standing in line at Dairy Queen – my sisters team had won the dodge ball tournament – my Dad walked in and just asked me when I was going to get my starter for my van fixed. “Well I’m not sure… if I’m going to give you guys my pay check, it’s not going to be any time soon…”

“Don’t worry about giving us your pay check. It’s been taken care of…”

At these words I was speechless. What? What did he mean it was taken care of? “The bank account?” He nodded, “car insurance?” another nod. “Rent?” he nodded, “Bethany’s Mexico trip?” and he gave one final nod.

At this I was overwhelmed. In the middle of Dairy Queen God was working miracles in my life! I immediately wanted to turn to Ethan, who was standing near me, and tell him everything that had just happened since our conversation had happened not even three hours ago! But knowing it was supposed to be quiet, I refrained. Little did I know that it had all been taken care of when Ethan had walked up and asked how the family was. Before he even spoke the words, “God will provide,” God already had provided!

But it didn’t end there! The next day my best friend’s little sister turned sixteen years old! With both of her sisters (and my best friends) out of the state, she was bummed and I was requested to be there to take their place. I was honored, however, I ended up getting stuck with my sister. I thought it was going to be a problem for her parents with another guest and another mouth to feed, but it wasn’t. It was God working yet again!

I told her parents about my starter needing replaced, and that it was not a big deal, I could get it fixed in a couple of paychecks. “What? I sold you a good working vehicle!” I tried to explain that it was not a big deal and gave small details of what God had done the previous day. However, they didn’t take my word for it that I was able to take care of it with a little bit of sacrifice on my behalf.

As I was leaving the party, the birthday girls father got out his checkbook and wrote me a check to fix my starter. With this I was even more overwhelmed by what God was doing! Ethan, who had told me that God provides would be going crazy if I told him all that had happened in the last 24 hours! I desperately wanted to tell someone, so when life groups came up that night I shared what God had been doing.

-Over three thousand dollars behind in rent.

-Negative one hundred something dollars in the bank.

-Car insurance coming out of the same bank account in a couple of days (which would have been a little over 100 dollars)

-Bethany still had over 1,000 dollars to be raised for Mexico (and supplies to buy for her trip).

-My starter needed fixed.

-Beth needed health coverage for her trip.

-We needed food and gas money for the week.

And it was all taken care of…

Over a week passed and I thought that God was just awesome and providing! Bethany went on her mission trip to Mexico and came back with great stories! She loved the trip, and went on and on. Later I was just talking about when I had received money for my starter, “yeah, that’s when I got two hundred dollars for Mexico!”

I turned and looked at her, what are you talking about? “Her Mom wrote me a check for Mexico the day of the party, said that she’s been meaning to send it!”

I just laughed, as God must have been laughing over the course of that week. With every need we had, he provided for them. When it seemed impossible (to the point where I locked myself in my room and watched old episodes of New Girl) he came through. Only through him would we have been able to get through that week untouched and unharmed, and yet… we still did.

This summer God has:

-Built relationships with people when I felt alone, and in need of a friend.

-Created trusting friends through those relationships

-Provided for all of mine and my families needs

-Restored my relationship with Stephanie

-Healed me from the damage Tyler inflicted emotionally

-Healed me to the point where I could forgive Mackinzie (Tyler’s current girlfriend), and I ask for her forgiveness in return.

-Healed me to the point, and given me the strength to forgive Tyler for everything he put me through

-I got baptized so any guilt or shame from that relationship is completely gone! (And it feels so good!)

-Allowed me to be there for people when they needed me (Bethany with her friend’s death).

-God unexpectedly restored HIS relationship with Stephanie through life groups!

When I asked God what I was doing home this summer, “why am I even here? You have done nothing!” He had to have been laughing at me… All he has done this summer looks small and insignificant when you are in it, but if you take a step back and see how every small step led to a massive picture, it’s amazing!

I just pray now that God continues to do the same thing once summer is over and I am back at Eastern Michigan.

Through the experience of this summer, I have come to the conclusion that God provides no matter the situation. So I am just going to “resolve to give God everything I’ve got and then leave the results up to him.”

And in doing that, if I win my battles, I will praise him, knowing he is in control and the one providing.

However, if I lose my battles, I will still praise him… knowing that he is the one in control, and has a plan for my life.

Praise God!

-Becca