JJ

... not the Jet-Plane (moms will know that reference) No, not JJ the Jet-plane... I'm talking about Jehovah Jireh.  Or in English:  God is my provider.  (yea, this is a serious, lengthy post, but c'mon and read it - it's good, I promise!)

I can't help but thank God every day for the ways in which He provides for me/us/the family.  It's just ridiculous.  I mean, seriously.  RI-dic-U-lous.  Here are some examples.  We'll start with the obvious - MONEY.  Dinero.  Benjamins.  (Not that I've seen one of those in a loonng time) Greenbacks.  You get it.  Here's the thing:
Most of you know I was a teacher.  Well, here in NC teachers are state employees and only get paid once a month for ten months (we don't get paid during the summer).  So a while back I did the math and began having X amount of dollars taken out of my paycheck every month and put into savings, so when summer came around it would be like I had two paycheck's worth in the bank.  My check pays the mortgage and car payment, so by the end of summer our savings was nearly gone, but I would start building it up again once August hit and we started getting paid again.  Well, as you know, I resigned from teaching so I could stay home with Owen this year.  Not only did that mean my last full paycheck was in May (rather than June) from maternity leave, it meant once our savings was gone... there wouldn't be another paycheck in August to get us back on track.  Well, it turns out we have God's favor all over us (wahoo!).  Not only did I get a full paycheck in June (I thought it would be considerably lower since I had extended leave), I also got the supplement in June (wasn't expecting to since I was on maternity)... that made my check 50% more than what it normally is.  Now it's September and guess what?  We haven't had to TOUCH our savings account.  Our Mortgage is paid through October, our car is paid off and we haven't been late on any bills (in fact we're usually early).  This has NEVER happened before - we always counted on our savings to pay our summer mortgage payments!  Not only that, but whenever our 'big'/higher bills are due, Bill has been getting larger paychecks (he's salary + commission so working extra hours doesn't do anything for him) so we can afford to keep paying off our debt and pay those higher bills.  It is just one more way that I'm positive I made the right choice to stay home with Owen and trust God to provide.. He's shown up BIG!  :)  Oh... and I should mention - we're faithful tithers and always give above and beyond 10%...and I'm positive that plays a huge role in God's provision for us.  We always give Him our first 10% and He blesses the rest! (as our pastor says) 
Also, I decided to sell all my classroom stuff, and a bunch of other random stuff and have a garage sale.  Well, before I had the sale I had this urge (ie. God's voice) to give 1/2 the money I made from the sale to Father's House.  Why?  Well, because I love them, their vision and their cause.... and I dunno, I think God was just seeing..... I mean, why give 1/2 to FH when we needed any extra moulah we could get?  Wouldn't you know, after 2 weeks of garage sales I sold over $600 worth of stuff.  And that wasn't even ALL the stuff!!  I'm positive I had such a good turnout because I promised God I'd be faithful with His prompting to give 1/2 the money to FH. 
Oh but that's not all.  We were in need of a new car seat for Owen.. he's about to hit the 20lb limit on the infant carrier.  Holy expensive, Batman.  But then one of my friends was like, "hey, Soandso used to work for Britax, we can get you a deal."  And it was a killer deal... and Owen will be able to be in the seat until he's 6years old (unless he breaks the 70lb weight limit before then). 
And that's not all.  But if I kept going on about all the ways He's shown up in our finances, you wouldn't believe me.  Because it's just. that. crazy.

And that leads me to the next category: FRIENDS.  God is our provider and He has hit the ball out of the park when it comes to providing us with friends family to surround us.  When we moved to NC we were all alone.  We literally knew one family here.. and we didn't really know them, we just happened to be from the same city and go to the same church back in Michigan, I just met them once and they lived 30 minutes from where we lived in Charlotte.  So we were alone.  Then we found Freedom House.  It was love at first sight.  Seriously.  The minute we walked in the doors of that school (yes, it met in a school, yes I didn't want to go at first because I didn't want to be in a school building 6 days a week) we felt like we were at home.  The amazing Michael Singer gave me a hug, shook Bill's hand and gave us the 'grand' tour.  We got hooked up with a Life Group and made some of the best friends ever. (Funny aside - we are now back in a life group with the same set of people (not on purpose!) we were with in our very first LG 5 years ago, and now we all have kids... surreal!) If it weren't for our family at Freedom House I really don't know where I'd be.  My best friend has come from a happenstance meeting at Freedom House.  Our 'family' has passed along baby clothes, a bassinet, baby tub, strollers... it's crazy how much we haven't had to buy because of all the friends that just pass around the baby stuff.  Remember this?  I mean, really - how awesome do my friends have to be to throw me an AMAZING baby shower and go through with it even though I was stuck in the hospital... and pray for me while they were partying, and bring the shower to me afterward?  It's not all about stuff though.  Our family here has prayed with us, waged battles against Satan with us, laughed with us, celebrated with us.  We truly love them and I thank God every day for the amazing family He has provided us through our friends at FHC. 


I really can't get over the multitude of ways God provides for us... even as I sit here writing this I'm in awe of it.  God is amazing.  Simply. Amazing.  And there's no way I could do life without Him.  Or want to, for that matter. 

Jehovah Jireh - you rock my face off!