Burlap and lights

We are constantly learning lessons.  Are you?  Seems like everywhere I turn lately there is a lesson the Lord is trying to teach me.  As of late, we are working very hard to be good stewards of Gods money.  It's His money.  Everything we have is His.  He owns the cattle in a thousand hills.  He created the earth and all that is in it.  Somehow there has been floating around a false gospel, one that says if you follow Jesus, He will make all your dreams come true.  He will make all your pain go away.  He will fix everything in your life that is broken.  Just bring all your problems to God and He will fix them. Well we are learning that making us happy, is not necessarily what the Lords desire is.  His desire is for us to be holy.  He wants us to be holy, like He is holy.  And the route to holy might be different for each person.  I may have trouble with materialism.  You may have trouble with lust.  So when the Lord begins to set me apart as holy unto Him, instead of giving me MORE stuff, He may take some away, because He knows that will make me more holy.  

For us, when Greg was making more money, we took it for granted.  I remember I would get frustrated when Greg's birthday came around because I couldn't think of anything to get him.  When he wanted something he would just go out and buy it himself.  When we made more money, we didn't really eat a lot of leftovers.  We didn't need to.  When we made more money, when it was time to host someone for dinner, we just ran to the grocery store for last minute ingredients and a special dessert just for kicks.  We took all of these things for granted.  And oh, all the blessings we missed.  

If you read my last blog post, you know that the Lord provided special hangers for Greg's work clothes.  After we lost half of his income, we had some major cutbacks to make.  But the Lord still provided.  We are still trying to find places to cut back.    

In our school Bible lessons we are working together through the book of Joshua.  The Israelites have just come out of the wilderness and crossed the Jordan.  The Lord has all the men to be circumcised.  It's an outward sign pointing to something that God wants to happen on the inside as well: cutting away the flesh.  Circumcision was a cutting away of the flesh of the body.  The Lord wanted them to cut away the desires of the flesh so that they would walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh.  They lived so long in Egypt, eating spicy meat, and having plenty and much variety, but they were slaves.  Before Christ we are slaves to our flesh, slaves to the enemy.  But after Christ we are free from that slavery, but sometimes we desire that variety, that spicy meat of our old life just like the Isarelites wanted to go back to Egypt.  They didn't want to depend on God for their food and clothing.  They would rather be enslaved again, as long as they knew they would be clothed and fed.  They didn't want to have to "trust" the Lord that He would send manna the next day.  They wanted to have it already.

This is exactly what we are going through right now.  For years we have had more than enough.  We have had spicy meat, variety.  We had enough to get what we wanted, when we wanted.  We haven't had to depend on God much financially because we had more than enough.  Now, we have barely enough to pay our bills, much less to finance an adoption.  The Lord is teaching us to depend on Him for everything, each day.  He is performing a circumcision on our hearts and on our checkbook.  He is cutting away the desires of the flesh by literally taking away our income.  If we barely have enough to pay our bills we have to look to Him each day to provide.  Each time we have to make a payment on our adoption, we have to look to Him.  

We still do our part.  Greg works hard and we budget the best we can.  We have fundraisers and work hard to do our part to raise the money for the adoption.  But each step we only get what He provides.  It's manna for that day, manna for that bill, manna for that payment, keeping us looking to Him and relying on Him.  

We are finishing up a round of yard sales.  There are still many fees yet to be paid before we bring Journey home.  So, The Lord provided a tremendous amount of donations of items, so much so that we were able to have yard sales 3 full weekends, for 3 days each.  Over the course of those yard sales, the Lord brought us around $3000 toward our adoption!  The yard sales are very hard work, but well worth the effort.  

In the midst of all of these yard sales we began to plan a BBQ fundraiser.  We searched for a place to have it, but kept coming up empty.  Places were either too expensive or you had to be a member to rent.  Our church is very small, so that wasn't an option either.  So one day I was watching the kids play outside and I just thought, "why not here?" Thats crazy!  I texted a couple of friends to get their reaction and all I got was positive responses.  Really?  Well, here we go!  I got a notebook and started making notes.  My friend said, "we need Christmas lights and burlap".  She meant for decorations.  So, I wrote that down.  I would really need to be on the lookout for some great deals!  

No...it was already taken care of.  In one of the last loads that were donated for our yard sales were several huge boxes of, you guessed it, Christmas lights!  And would you believe there were 15 working sets?!?!  So cool!  And not too long after, a dear friend came to donate...yes...wait for it...burlap.  She had several yards that she was using as curtains and wanted to donate them!  Amazing!  

I think about that movie Moms Night Out, every time I tell a story like this.  "Every time I go to Walmart there is a parking place up front!  There is never a parking place up front!"  If you haven't seen the movie you won't get it. LOL!

I don't care if it sounds cheesy!  The Lord provided.  Again.

So our BBQ fundraiser was off to a great start.  Stay tuned for the results...