"The Lord will provide"

 
October 2013 my husband called me from work telling me he was getting laid off from his job he had been working at for the past 4 years. At first I thought he was kidding, until I heard he was crying. We have a house, 2 vehicles, 2 young children, and bills just like everyone else has to pay. So of course I totally freak out and start going into crazy survival mode as soon as I hung up the phone. I started literally throwing stuff into our garage to sale, I started calling companies and turning all of our "extra" stuff off like our Internet and satellite provider. I was trying to find somebody to watch my girls so I could go find a job just 30 minutes after my husband told me he was getting laid off. I didn't have anybody to watch them, which was probably a good thing because I was panicking. Its very scary having to think "What if we lose our house?" or "How are we going to buy groceries?" or "What about Christmas? Will my kids have presents under the tree for Christmas?"
 
 I'm writing this because I am truly amazed at how God has provided for us while my husband has been laid off these past 3 months. God has been working through so many people to help provide for us during our struggle that we haven't even had hardly any struggle. We have had to go without, but we have had everything we need, all thanks to God and answered prayers. We never asked for help or asked for anything, God knew what we needed and worked through others to provide what we needed. I now will begin to tell about the blessings and answered prayers God sent us... be ready for chill bumps, because it's amazing!

October 25, 2013 was the day my husband was laid off. October 30, 2013 he started a new job. Now it wasn't as much pay as he was getting, and it was a much farther drive, but God blessed him with this Job just 5 days later.

We had tried to have a garage sale and we made some extra money, but i still had so many baby clothes left, and i felt like God was telling me to give them away to someone. I packed up 2 big bags of clothes and gave them to a friend with a baby who was very appreciative of them, and come to find out who really needed them. Just a week later I get a phone call from a very sweet woman I go to church with asking what size clothes my oldest daughter was in because she had some clothes her daughter had out grown. They were my daughter's size and she brought 2 big bags of winter clothes that my daughter really needed. I gave 2 bags of clothes away, and received 2 bags of clothes. Now, you tell me that wasn't a blessing from God!! That was no coincidence.

The month of December is when we really got some answered prayers. I have had an old friend come to me for help who has had no one else to turn to. I had no idea how we could help because we were barely getting by ourselves. My husband gave them our last $20 one day because he saw they were doing worse off than us. Well a couple days later my husband gets a call saying he has a $125 gift card to Walmart at the place he was laid off from, from were people had took up money for the people who were laid off. We were down to no money and got that call!

One day while I was stressing out about how my daughters had hardly any Christmas presents from Santa I get a text message from another woman I go to church with asking if my daughters would play with certain toys, and that she cleaned her daughters closet out and had some toys I could give to my daughters for Christmas! What a blessing!! So thankful for my church family!

A few weeks later me and my husband were on our way to get pictures made at the fire department and were running late for our appointment and my husband was speeding, we get pulled over and we also had an expired tag because we hadn't been able to afford to get them yet. So the police officer tells us we were speeding and our tag is expired, which we already knew lol, and my husband explains that he had been laid off and we are living pay check to pay check barely getting by. He goes to his car and comes back with just a warning, and gave us 2 more months to renew our tags! Later that same night my husband was telling someone about it and they tell my husband they will buy our tags not to worry about them! PRAISE THE LORD!! Then later on that same night I get a message on facebook from a very sweet young girl telling me she has cleaned out her closet and has some clothes she thinks will fit me, and that she has some toys to give to my girls. She didn't know we needed them, and she didn't know i needed clothes. She had more toys that i put under the Christmas tree for my girls, and clothes for me to wear to church that I needed!

That's not all, we had 2 other times when were down to no money and My husband found out he got a check for sub pay, then another time we got a check from our escrow account with our mortgage where we had too much money in it or something like that lol

The only person I asked for help was my dad, I asked him to help pay for my braces until we get back on our feet good, and I'm glad i did because he gave me some good advice. He said "The Lord will provide, you may not have everything you want, but he will provide you with what you need." Almost every day i prayed to God "Please Lord continue to provide for us during this difficult time in our lives, and guide my husband to what he needs to do, and help us be who we need to be." We kept our financial problems mostly to ourselves, hardly anybody knew we were having a hard time. I didn't understand why this was happening to us, but I believe it was to push my family closer to God. To expand my faith to see that God was listening to me and that he is always here for me. It has also pushed me to pray more, and to not be embarrassed to pray out loud to my family. I believe my husband has gotten closer to God, and his new job allowed him to be off every Sunday so he was able to go to church with me every Sunday morning. My husband got a call saying he was able to come back to work and was no longer laid off. He starts back January 6th. He was the 6th person out of 6 people that was called back to work. Hallelujah!!

* Matthew 6:31-34 "So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's on."

* Luke 12:24 "Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!"