God Always Provides!

I left Ketchikan on October 15. I had my last District Executive Meeting already slated the 16-17 and we decided that I would just stay in Portland until Scott met me 5 days later.

Flying with an infant is always fun, but when you are packing all the things you need for a 3 month or so road trip...it is interesting. 2 BIG bags, a cooler, a jogging stroller, backpack/diaper-bag, computer, car seat, carry-on duffel bag and a purse. Oh, and the baby and baby carrier :)

But we made it. And thanks to a great friend, I was able to go to the meetings baby free.

The day after the meetings was an interesting one for me. The concept that I no longer had other major responsibilities: a job, a house to keep, serving on the district board, etc; was merely a cognitive one. My emotions had not caught up with reality yet.

I did what I usually do when I need to sort things out in my head: go for a walk.

As I walked around the neighborhood and soaked in the beauty of the sunshine, blue sky, fall leaves in all shades of orange, yellow and red, I prayed. I talked to God about everything. The way you do when you talk with a dear friend you haven't seen in a while. I had talked to God over the past few weeks, but they were the short kind of prayers. Not the long meandering prayers where you can unload all that is on your mind and listen and just BE with God.

As I was praying I realized I still had quite a bit of internal stress and worry that I was carrying. I knew it was wrong and ultimately it showed that I did not trust God, especially not the way I wanted to.

But there were so many unknowns.

Can we get a good van at the price we can afford?
Will our house sell?
How long?
What will life look like in three months?
Will Scott be able to find work in time before the money runs out?
How will we pay for all the hospital bills from having Alexander?

The more I prayed the more weight I began to feel. Which is not what God intends for us as we come to Him with our troubles.

I realized that I need to give it over to God once and for all. I needed to stop worrying and try to control the things I cannot and should not. I was reminded of one of the devotionals from Jesus Calling that I had read a while back. It talked about how, as humans, we are the only of God's creatures that has the ability to think about the future. All other animals only live in the here and now. But God has given us a gift to think on the future. However, the gift was never meant to be used to worry about the future as we look at things that are seemingly impossible to overcome. The gift was given so that we could see, know and remember that we have eternity awaiting us. The promise of life becoming what God always intended before the fall. We are given the gift to ponder the future and remind us of the hope we have in Jesus and eternity with Him.

We were not intended to see into the future so that we can worry and plan away our lives. It can't be. For, I find that when I get into that crazy-maker mind of worry and fret, I lose sight of God. I get wrapped up in the questions of what am I going to do. I begin to act independently from God and try to figure out how to accomplish things on my own.

But I know this is not the way God wants for me to live my life. Because it is a stressful and hopeless way.

So I gave it all to Him.

One of the hardest issues to not worry about was the medical bills. Xander was about a $74,000 baby. He is worth every penny, a hundred times over, no doubt! But we didn't want his nickname to be Visa or Mastercard into his teen years! I was stressed about how we were going to pay for it, especially going into a season of no income. Our insurance paid for some bills and we were paying for some. All of the bills were settled with the insurance company, except the big $40,000 hospital bill.
It has been pending for months. My biggest fear was that it would settle while we were on this faith trip and we would be responsible for all of it. I had reasons, that I won't get into, for believing we may end up having to pay for the entire bill. But I needed to give it to God along with my worry of it. I told God to either take care of it or have it remain in pending status until Scott had a job so we could pay for it.

The next day, Scott called and asked if I was sitting down. I told him I was actually lying down. Good enough.

Then he proceeded to tell me that we got an email from our insurance company about the big bill. My heart started to pound. This was a real test to see if I really trusted God, as I prepared myself for bad news.

He went on to say that the entire bill was covered and paid for by our insurance. What? I thought the best case scenario would be they would cover half, but all of it? WOW!

It was a huge lesson for me in really trusting God's provision for us.

Give all our worries to God. He is much bigger than anything we face and He knows the future, we do not!