God's Abundant Blessings

I don't pretend to know all of the theological reasonings behind times of abundant blessings and times of famine (physically, emotionally, spiritually).  However, I do believe that sometimes God withholds His blessings while He is in the midst of doing a mighty and necessary work in our lives ... and sometimes He may pour out His blessings when He sees that we are responding to the work He is doing in our hearts and minds.


I do not believe it is a coincidence that we have seen His abundant blessings poured out on us in the past month ...


...  after months of waiting, 
     we received our Adoption Tax Credit.


...  after months of praying for painting jobs, 
     Jim has more job requests than he can do.
     He has been working 10-12 hours/day,
     6 days per week.


...  after months of rain,
     Jim has had abundant sunshine
     in which to complete his painting jobs.


...  after months of looking for a very specific SUV,
     with very low miles, at a reasonable price,
     we found the exact vehicle we'd been looking
     for (with the specific year and options package
     that we were looking for).  And, we "happened"
     to find this vehicle a week after we received
     the Adoption Tax Credit.


...  and, the amazing Garage Sales 
     and Craigslist Sales,
     combined with all of the purchases 
     we have been able to make from Craigslist,
     NOT a coincidence.






What happened a month ago?


After an 8 1/2 month critical Marriage Crisis, we were finally able to make some huge strides in re-building our 29 year marriage.


We had definitely been trying to work through things for the past 8 months, but it was a serious roller coaster ride.


God had definitely been providing for our every need during the months of unemployment (and we totally saw His blessings in that), but we certainly didn't have any "extra" during those months.




Sadly, it was a very serious crisis in our family that pulled us together.  It took a critical situation outside of our marriage, to show us how desperately we needed to be TOGETHER to face this new crisis.


The new crisis has brought much heartache and pain, but we are facing it TOGETHER.  We are holding each other when we cry.  We are responding to the crisis with a UNITED front. 


While the enemy is doing all that He can to destroy the work of the Lord in our family, we are WALKING SIDE-BY-SIDE in this crisis.  


While we are grieving the loss of relationships within our family, Jim and I will NOT be divided.




Oops.  Got side-tracked for just a minute.  Back to the Abundant Blessings part of it ...




For US, I definitely believe that the Lord was withholding some of His abundant blessings while He worked in our hearts.  We needed to be at the bottom of the barrel (financially, spiritually, emotionally)  in order to cling to Him ... in order to know that He was the only answer for our problems.  However ... this does NOT mean that it is your fault if you are facing a time of need.  No.  Not at all.  Sometimes we are walking through the tough stuff "just because".


If you haven't received your Tax Credit, that does not necessarily mean that God is withholding it ... it might just be the IRS-red-tape-process.  However, it could also be that the Lord has detained it for His purposes.


But ... whether in time of plenty or time of famine (financially, emotionally, spiritually) we must always be seeking the Lord for His grace ... His wisdom ... His truths in each and every situation.


While we would never want to repeat the journey that we have walked the past 8 months, we are thankful for all that the Lord has taught us through this time of famine, and we pray that He will use us to minister to others that are walking the same dry and difficult journey.


For now, though, we are PRAISING JESUS for HIS ABUNDANT BLESSINGS (financially, emotionally, relationally) and continuing provision for our family.




Please keep our family in your prayers ...


...  that the Lord would restore broken relationships.


...  that the enemy's plans would be STOPPED.
     (I believe that when he failed to destroy our
      marriage, he decided to work to destroy
      family relationships.  He snuck in the back door
      while no one was looking and ransacked our
      household before we knew what was happening.)


...  that we would ALL seek the LORD
      with ALL of our hearts, minds, & souls.