At The Bottom Of The Barrel?

It was a hard thing to endure. I don’t know what was harder, though. Was it the initial shock of suddenly being laid off from my job of almost 11 years, or was it the realization that I had a stay at home wife, three kids, and one on the way to take care of without income? I had never seen it coming. Just two weeks prior I was budgeting the upcoming year and had come to the realization that I was finally making enough to live comfortably. Then the floor fell out from under me. I remember going to the van and calling my wife with the words that I thought that I would never have to utter. And then I cried. I cried hard. All I remember was asking God over and over again to take care of us.

“Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:25-30).

After I had collected myself I headed on over to the Unemployment Office and got that ball rollin’. I then went for a long drive. I took the “long way home” and just talked to God. I was still in shock and often wondered if I was dreaming or if I was some part of a sick joke. I expected my phone to ring at some point with my now former bosses saying that I had been “punked” and for me to come back to work. Slowly reality was setting in.

My wife had bumped up her midwife appointment to that morning, and so once I had gotten home and stopped hugging and holding her, the kids and us got in the van and left. By this point our church had been notified through email and, as I was in the van during the appointment, I notified my parents. The appointment was over and we made our way back home. The thought kept repeating itself over and over again- will we be OK?

As we pulled into the carport a most shocking sight welcomed us- groceries. Not just a few either. Someone from church went out to Sam’s Club and went to town. Huge jugs of spaghetti sauce, a huge sack of flour, lots of bananas, dish detergent, toilet paper, paper towels, and then some. It took a while for us to get it all into the house. I knew at that point that we would be alright. In God’s sovereign will He had put me in this place and he would see to it that we would be cared for.

“So, it was that quails came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. So, when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, ‘This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.’” (Exodus 16:13-15).

I was unemployed for seven months. I had submitted almost 200 job applications and resumes and got almost the same amount of rejections in return. But during that time of uncertainty and discouragement God was in control. It was only a couple of days after I had lost my job that my Mom had mailed us a very, very generous check to help us out. Because my job was a uniformed job I didn’t have very many clothes to wear during the five-day week so that certainly helped with having to buy clothes. Another family member paid our rent for one month. My father mailed us a good amount of money too. Now these events are what you would expect from family members when one loses their job, but it went even further than that in God’s provision.

With the unemployment benefits we still came up short by several hundred dollars for our needs. Our church provided this short coming, which was applied to our rent. So, our needs were being met per month. However, on my final month of unemployment, we had a mission’s conference. Because of the money that was invested in this, one of our deacons approached me and apologetically informed me that they couldn’t help us with rent. I felt a calming peace come over me and I told him that it was OK, because God would provide it. Sure enough, a few days later, my Mom unexpectedly sent a check for the exact amount that was needed to cover rent for that month. I didn’t tell her of our need, so only God could have laid it on her heart to do so. On another occasion, our van’s catalytic converter had failed and needed to be repaired. Obviously, we didn’t have the money to cover the cost. Then a dear brother from church GAVE me the several hundred dollars needed for the repair. Also, on another occasion, the throttle control on the van was failing and was causing the van to stop accelerating while I was in the middle of driving down the road. I often had to drift over to the side of the road and restart the hooptie jalopy. My Mom cut the check to cover that expense, as well as sending us a little money throughout the months during my endless (and sometimes hopeless) search for employment.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33).

You usually hear about these blessings from other people’s testimonials and think to yourself “Man, nothing like that ever happens to me”. It’s the kind of stuff that you read about in Guideposts or something of that nature. However, there was one more final blessing that you usually hear about, and that is “paying it forward”. It happened one night when I stopped to pick up a pizza for dinner. Friday nights are our “pizza night” in our home. This was the last Friday before I was to start my new job and I ran into a fellow church member and his son while at the pizza shop. I had to still wait for our pizza whereas he already had his ready. When I went in to get mine I was surprised to find that it had already been paid for.

“And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there. So he went and did according to the word of the Lord, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook.” (1 Kings 17:4-6).

The lesson that I had learned in the seven months that I was unemployed is that God is in control. When He has you where you least expect it, like at what we may think is “the bottom of the barrel”, He never forsakes us. Trials come our way to strengthen us and to draw us closer to Him. My faith in God had certainly become solid during this period of my life where many would be staring hopelessness in the eyes. However, when I was at the bottom of the barrel, I was staring into my Lord’s eyes the whole time.

In Christ Alone.

I would like to thank you, my two or three devoted readers, for following this blog ministry of mine. It has been many years since God has called me to preach and this has been my outlet for doing such. However, I have decided to indefinitely suspend any future blog posts with the possibility of shutting this down completely. I hope and trust that this blog has blessed you in some way and may God bless you in your daily walk with Him.

Two Great Stories For The Price Of One!

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer (Matthew 21:22).

The Train Table

Christmas 2009. That Christmas season was a hard one for us. We usually don’t fret too much about getting gifts, but we usually like to get something. Especially for the children. But this holiday season was full of bills. Late ones at that. My employer gives out Christmas bonuses and that is what funds our holiday spending. But in 2009 it had to all go to bills. I will admit that I was upset. Because we couldn’t provide that year. It was also my youngest son’s first Christmas.

But then a series of events took place that I will never forget. The first was my wife’s aunt. She has a son who is about three years older than my oldest son. They usually like to hand down clothes and toys to us. This year a series of cars, tractors, and toy musical instruments were given to us. We decided to save them for Christmas morning. Things were looking up. Then a woman that I worked with approached me asking questions about my children’s clothing sizes. The next thing I knew there was something called “Secret Santa” where some of the people I worked with went in and bought gifts for my children. Just my children. I don’t know if they have done this with other employee’s children in the past, but 2009 was for my kids. There were now gifts for under the tree.
Then a phone call from my Dad. He is remarried with two young boys. He and my step mom offered us the boy’s train table, along with numerous wooden trains and wooden tracks.

We were able to muster up enough money to buy our youngest (who was three months old at the time) a $10 toy guitar for babies. There were now gifts for Christmas morning. It was definitely a heartwarming feeling. Knowing that you went from no gifts, to numerous gifts all because of the generous hearts of others. As the wrapping paper flew, out came tractors, toy keyboards, cars, clothes, footballs, etc. And then the defining moment. I went down the steps first and set up the camera. The moment was priceless as I panned from the train table to the stairs and my oldest son. The look on his face will never be forgotten. As a matter of fact, I think he almost fell down the stairs trying to run to the table. He LOVES trains. So you can image the thrill when he’d seen the table with the immense track set up and the long line of trains magnetically connected to one another. I could watch the video clip a million times and still shed a tear. I don’t think God concerns Himself with making sure people get gifts at Christmas, but I do believe He concerns Himself with making sure that His presence is known. It was on that Christmas morning.

The clothes have since been out grown and now lie in totes for the next child to inherit. The tractors get pulled out from time to time, only to become boring within minutes. We sometimes forget about the keyboard. But the train table is still as used a year later as it was when we first got it. My sons wear it out every time they go downstairs, even if there is a brand new toy just within reach. Every child that has visited loves to play with it. Even my elderly neighbor fell in love with it during a recent visit. It is without a doubt the greatest material gift that we have ever experienced. Not just because of how well it is loved and used, but because the timing of it’s arrival was perfect. God provided gifts that Christmas. He always provides if we rely on Him to do so.

The Amazing Exploding Two Dollars

Did I ever tell you about the time God made two dollars explode in my wallet? Well if I didn’t, then let me tell you now. For the protection of my family, I won’t disclose what Christmas season the next story took place. But if you know me and are reading this, then you know when.

It all started one payday weekend. My check was already going to be smaller than usual due to cut hours. And there was a lot of needs on our grocery list. We went and did what we had to do and got what we had to get. By the weekend’s end we were left with… $2. Now at this time my wife was babysitting. So I wasn’t worried about having just $2 to live off of because we could make it off of her money. Until my wife got a phone call saying that she won’t be babysitting for two weeks. Now we were in trouble. I decided to take off the following Monday because there were errands to run and I had a big emergency project that needed to be done right away at home. So I used a vacation day. As I was driving around doing my errands, I was sulking. I was upset and angry asking God “Why?”. There was no way that we could live off of $2 for two weeks. Not to mention there were a few bills that had to be paid before my next paycheck was due. “God, you have provided for us before. Please do so again.” Over and over I would pray this.

Well on the Sunday of this weekend my in-laws brought over a bunch of their stuff from their old house and stored it in our basement. Some of these items included appliances. That Monday night someone came to look at their refrigerator and bought it. My Father-in-law told us we could keep $50 from the sale. So now we were up an extra $50. Then my wife got a call saying that she would be needed to baby-sit that week for four days after all (and then three more days the following week). The next day I was at work when our receptionist handed me a card that was mailed to me at work. Anonymously. Inside the card was the inscription “May You Be Blessed This Christmas” and included was a $200 gift card to Wal-Mart. This was the kind of blessing that you only read about. But it was real this day. Then another $200 check came at week’s end from my Dad as an early Christmas gift to my family. Also the following week the company I work for surprised us when they gave us a bonus of $100, despite hardships that the company is facing. Then right before Christmas Eve I finally sold a guitar that had been for sale for quite some time. Another $100! So in less than two week’s time, our $2 had exploded into a grand total of $810 before my next paycheck and Christmas. And we started with only two one dollar bills. Thank you God for your many blessings and answered prayers!

The moral of these two stories is that when things seem out of control, times are hard, and despair runs rampant, we need to be quiet and not ask “Why?”. We need to listen to the voice of The Almighty as He tells us ”Hush child and let me speak now”. He is always good, all the time. I hope that these two stories are proof. I know that they are and that He is real because I experienced Him in these two stories, along with many other times in my life. May He bless you this holiday season and the coming New Year.