Show and Tell

I'm blown away sitting here with a dancing heart and crying happy tears. I am literally overflowing and I can’t help but share some encouragement in what God has been doing.

This year was so hard on so many levels especially in the waiting. One of those areas, closing on this house, seemed near impossible after 9 months of battling and waiting and biting our fingernails. I felt like every obstacle that could be in the way was in the way. Every time we’d clear a hurdle in the nick of time we’d be met with another seemingly even bigger than the last. It seemed there was no end to them and no moment to catch a breath. Yet God was right there swooping in at the right moment every time and giving us enough strength for each day and just enough light for us to see the next step. Today we have our house...almost an acre of property in NJ, near our jobs, with a giant garage and in one of the best school districts around, in a place we could never dream to afford. Sometimes I still can’t believe it’s real. 

I feel like the day we closed on this house God unleashed his storehouse of blessing on us, reminding us how He is true to His promises, and teaching us pursuing the will of God in faith even when it seems impossible is rewarded. As my devotional this morning reminded me, pain, hardship, and tough times are always followed with growth, and reward. It’s worth it to see it through to the other side. This house certainly has been a lot of work and there’s much more to do, but I feel like we’ve had one blessing after another after another since we’ve closed. In less than a month of getting this house we’ve gotten a free riding mower on the side of the road a mile from our house, a backhoe in our driveway to use the day we were gonna rent one for $1,000, free flooring in our bedroom because the wrong one was shipped, a top of the line matching fridge, microwave, and gas stove from different sellers (basically brand new for $1,000 as opposed to the $8,000 it should have cost us), 75% off tile the day we went to restore to find and purchase our bathroom tile, and today this story. 

So this week we have our fireplace inspected to find it’s unusable and we need to rebuild it for $8,000 or put in an insert for $5,000 best price. Of course that wasn’t in our budget and we already had cut out getting the kitchen done cuz of unexpected costs. I was literally just saying yesterday, “I don’t know where we are going to find $5,000 for this. I’m not working because Sy only has half days of school so what we saved to fix this house is all we have. Not gonna happen.” Not having the fireplace is a big deal as that fireplace is gonna be our main source of heat until we can get our heating/air system installed in December. Then today I wake up to this...almost $5,000 in my unemployment account from my claim that was on hold for no apparent reason and unpaid since July. I must have sent 25 emails and made 100 calls about this since March...even wrote the governor with no response on anything.  But don’t you know THE DAY AFTER I need to “find” $5,000 so we have heat this winter it magically arrives in my account. You can’t tell me there isn’t a God! This is bananas! And these are how the stories have gone for us day after day since we closed. Blessings upon blessings. It’s literally exciting to wake up in the morning and see what God is gonna do next. 

Funny enough this isn’t even a 1/4 of the story of this house and the miracles we’ve experienced. I hope one day I get to share the full story with every one of you. But just know this...God is good. His timing is perfect. He can do the impossible. Pain is not wasted and it produces growth if we see it through. And He cares not only about our needs but blesses us beyond what we think is possible if we just put our trust in Him.