Day 86: Blessings

It's September 1st!  Time to pull out the fall decorations and start dreaming of cooler days.  Actually, it's been in the triple digits all week and I'm having a hard time getting my head around the idea of pumpkins, changing leaves, hot chocolate and spiced apples.  But I love to mark the changing of the seasons, even if it's purely symbolic in Southern California :) 

There are so many great ideas on Pinterest for this fall, and I can't wait to use them.  One of the things I want to do this year with my boys is a Thankful Tree.  We won't actually do that one until November, but it did get me thinking.  I have so much to be thankful for this year.  

Yesterday we got amazing, fantastic news about my husband's job and our current situation.  So many details that seemed impossible just fell into place with no help from us whatsoever!  It was just amazing to watch God work and trust Him completely to reveal His will to us.  The last six months of just scraping by, barely paying our bills and supplementing our pantry with donations from a local church's food program will be over soon.  This doesn't mean we are out of the woods, but the pressure seems to be easing up a bit.  BUT, like the children of Israel, I know our tendency will be to stop relying on God for our daily provisions when times are easier.  I so desperately do not want that to happen. This trial of my faith has been so beneficial to us as a family and made it so real.  So I started making a list.  I know for a fact that there are more blessings than I can recall, but I wanted to record some of them to share someday with my kids and to be a testimony to God's grace and His provision as well as the blessing of being a part of a church family that truly cares for its own.  A few months ago, I finally learned this lesson: God blesses repentance and forgiveness.  It's not a "pass" for doing wrong.  He's showing us that His ways are so much higher than ours, and He has a plan for our lives, even when we blow it!  So here's my list of highlights from the last six months: 

• Several bags of groceries and pantry good donated by a man in the church
• A delicious plate of almond lemon bars made my a young girl facing her own problems
• $100 Henry's card (groceries) from a lady in the church
• $20 handshake from a faithful member
• $20 cash after church from a lady I don't even know
• A recommendation from a friend to go to New Covenant Fellowship on Sundays from 12-1pm for free food and toiletry items.  This pantry kept my baby in food all summer.  They also had clothes for the boys and hosted a free back to school bash with backpacks stuffed with school supplies and free lunch.
• $100 anonymous gift
• Another $100 gift when our account was down to $2 and we still had ten days to go before pay day.
• $50 Walmart card to "help us get through" 
• I discovered programs for low income households that lowered our gas, electric, water and phone bills
• We were approved for Medical for the little ones
• Bryce was approved for free lunches at school
• We ate many meals with Grandma and Grandpa to help stretch the grocery budget
• Hip2Save, and online savings site, led me to multiple free or VERY low cost gifts for the family for all the birthdays coming up.
• I picked up 6 new piano students THIS MONTH! (after losing three that I was really counting on!)
• $100 payment for a job I haven't even done yet :)
• I was able to get enough participants to start a home school group and make a few hundred dollars for the service (that came just in time to help pay last month's rent)
• Groceries from Grandma (I asked for butter and she brought a couple bags of goodies over instead)
• $1500 from a family member to help with fees
• $310 from Verizon for "rebundling" our services with them
• A free battery for our van

These aren't really in any kind of order- they were just as my mind could recall them.  I'm kicking myself for not writing them down as they occurred, because I know there were more, but for now, this list will do.  I'll keep coming back to update until the year is done, and then I intend to do a better job of recording throughout next year.  

Update: I just posted this yesterday, and today, as soon I we walked into church, someone handed us two envelopes.  Each one had $100 inside it!  My cup runneth over!!!

Please take this post in the spirit in which it was intended.  I am not boasting or trying to show you how spiritual we are.  I have been at the lowest point of my life and marriage this last year, and looking back now, it's been the best thing for me.  So much of what I've always taken for granted, or labeled with "Christian cliches" like "God will provide" "He's in control" "Just trust God" has become real to me.  He really DOES provide when you stop trying to make things happen and just let Him work!  Praise the Lord!