Saturday, November 27, 2004

Thanksgiving Day disaster

Nov 25 THANKSGIVING Day, 2004
God is able and He is willing; I am expecting so there is nothing that can hinder.
That is the thought was in my mind as I awoke this morning. That knowledge creates joy. Just as Peter wrote.
Now for the rest of the story…
In June of 2003 I got laid off. This was a blessing because while I was working I couldn’t afford the health insurance they offered, so I had no coverage. When I got laid off, I went on unemployment and so was automatically covered. That’s when Scottie got sick and started running up a million plus dollars worth of medical bills, which were all covered, thank God. But that’s a different story.
He was so critically ill for so long, that eventually my unemployment ran out. Unfrotunately, I thought I still had three more months to go. So we got behond on our mortgage and were on the edge of foreclosure. After waiting for Fannie Mae approval for a couple of months, the credit union finally said they would be able to restructure the loan and save our house. But we had to sign a modification agreement at 9:00 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving and it would cost $500.
I figured the Lord could take care of that somehow and I realized that my $800 paycheck would be deposited on Thanksgiving Day. Good. That will take care of that. He can take care of the $700 payment that will be due on Dec. 1st, too.
Just before we left home for Mom’s for Thanksgiving dinner (and just after I wrote the first two paragraphs of this journal entry) I went online to check the balance on my checking account, to see if my paycheck had been deposited yet. It had in it $400. I thought. “Hmm, haven’t those checks come through yet? Hasn’t my check been deposited yet?” Then I saw that my $800 deposit had been made, but there was only a $400 balance.
Somehow I had miscalculated. I had gotten overdrawn, all my checks went through in two days, generating $189 worth of overdraft fees, leaving me $100 short of the money I needed to save our home from foreclosure on Friday.
It was hard to maintain thankfulness that Thanksgiving Day. I knew there was nothing I could about it that day. The thought came to borrow it from my mom, but I rejected that idea. Then I started to think, “No, not what am I going to do, but Lord, what are You going to do about it?”
Well, the money did not magically appear in my checking account overnoght, so I asked the credit union if they could delay the signing for one day. They agreed. Then I went to work delivering papers.
That was where the victory was won. As I walked the streets in the drizzling rain I struggled. “Lord, you let me down.” “No, the Lord will never fail me, He cannot fail me.”
“But what am I going to do?” “No. Lord, what are You going to do?” “But how could You let this happen?” “The enemy may have messed things up but it’s not over yet.”
Finally I remembered last December after Scott’s emergency RVAD surgery, when they didn’t think he was ready to have it removed, but there was a huge blood clot that blocked the blood flow, so they had to remove it, and miraculously, he did fine without it.
After that surgery, the Lord gave me a word from Joshua. It was simply, “I will not fail thee.” And that has stayed with me ever since. And it strengthens my faith whenever I think of it. And it strengthened my faith then.
So since I knew the Lord would not fail me, (knew, not hoped) I decided to sing and praise Him. I thought “Well, this should be pleasing to the Lord - if I can still praise and worship Him even in this situation where it looks hopeless.”
So I did. The rest of the paper route I praised the Lord and rejoiced in Him. I knew that He is with me and that He is in me. That He is in me and He is with me.
So when I finished the route I went to the credit union. I knew that the Lord was with me and the Spirit in me would give me favor with them. I told them what had happened and they refunded every single one of those seven overdraft fees. $189.00 worth!
The next night I had dream. Star and I were climbing up a tall mountainside. It was densely covered with short green shrubs. We caught a glimpse of something white scurrying past us. I saw that it was a white bird’s wing. We ran, following it to the top of the mountain, when suddenly, the earth just ended and we went over the edge into space, with the earth far, far below us.
Star was fearful, thinking we would surely die. I looked way, way down there and just thought, “Well, I guess this is it.” Then I suddenly realized that we could fly.
I woke up with this thought in my mind: When the bottom drops out, that is an opportunity to soar.

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