It's Just Your 19th Nervous Breakdown...

This week has been particularly trying.  I'm not certain if I've yet mentioned it, but the car I've had for 11 years finally gave up the ghost, and I sold it for cash.  Incredibly difficult for me to do, since it was chock full of memories, but it had to happen.  Thankfully, we had one working vehicle.

The operative word here being 'had'.

On Wednesday evening, I went to my neighbor, a very close friend of our family, and asked if he'd mind if we borrowed his extra vehicle for a couple of days.  I had a huge work commitment Thursday and would have to be there from 8AM to probably close to midnight, and didn't want Steve to have to figure out how to get home from work.  I figured if we had TWO working vehicles just that one particular day, we could get everything accomplished and all would be well.  He said no problem, gave us the keys, and all was, indeed, well.

Until Thursday morning at 5:15 AM when my husband called me and said his van had broken down on the side of the road on the way to work.  

My prayer on the way to pick him up was simply this: Please, God, provide for us.  You always have, and I have no other recourse than to trust you now.  We don't have the ability to buy something new or take out a loan right now.  We officially own NO working vehicles.  Please help us.  Provide for us.  Please.  (Over and over, all the way to pick him up, drop him off at work, come back home, change, and go to work myself.)

Partway through the morning, my husband called to tell me that the man at the garage where the van had been towed said there was no point in putting anymore money into the van.  Figuring if the man who could've taken our money said it wasn't worth it, we decided against having it worked on.  The man did, however, say that there was a very inexpensive car for sale with only 67000 miles on it, and would we be interested.  We were.  And, within an hour, my neighbor called us to tell us that he didn't need his vehicle back until next year after the winter.  

Could it be that prayer works? 

I have a genuine belief that God will handle things.  He will handle everything.  When we put our faith in Him instead of in ourselves, that's when things start falling into place.  Whether we see Him or not, hear Him or not, we can choose to believe Him for what He has told us: Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened.  We don't have much money.  We can't take out a loan right now because we're trying to refinance our house and we're so close we can't delay the process any longer.  We work 25 and 45 minutes away from home, respectively.  We have no choice but to trust God to take care of us.  To provide for us.  And within an hour, he gave us the ability to have two working vehicles.  

There's something about throwing your hands up and saying 'Jesus, take the wheel', isn't there?  Carrie Underwood had it right.  When we stop trying to fix things and make them work, and we trust Him to do it, that's all He needs to hear.  Why is it that we wait so long?  Why isn't it our first instinct instead of our last resort?  Like a little kid saying, "I wanna do it!" and then attempting to dress themselves for ten minutes before sitting in a sobbing heap and finally letting us do it... we, as fully developed adults, do the same thing.  We make an absolute mess of our lives, again and again, defiant and determined to do it our own way until we finally sit in a sobbing heap and let Him take over.  We'd save ourselves so much time, effort, and heartache if we'd just let Him take care of things to begin with.

To all of you out there who wonder if He's listening, He is.
To all of you who worry that He might not be real, He is.
To all of you who wonder if He hears your prayers, He does.
To all of you who think you're not worth it, He believes you are.
To all of you who are losing faith, He has faith in you.

Don't give up.  Just give it over to Him.

Stephanie Jean