From a Thankful Heart, 11/03
We’ve had tremendous reasons for counting our blessings during this past year. For those who may not know, Kevin was unemployed for nine months, then had a temporary job for three months before finding a permanent position. After that extended period, we finally had to declare bankruptcy, and gave up our house in the process. Looking now at more of an overall picture, those events seem far less significant than we deemed them at the time. For just one area of examples…
Financially, we were “making ends meet” far longer than we expected, due to some of Kevin’s decisions as his job was terminated – at one point, it didn’t seem to make sense, the order in which things happened, but we could see God’s plan and provision. Kevin qualified for unemployment, and God guided my business endeavors, which resources took care of our basic necessities and most bills for a while longer. However, our own planning and efforts could only go so far in our set of circumstances.
At different times, particularly when we were not doing well, financially or emotionally, God blessed us through benevolence from the church as a whole, then from individual members of the church family. We received anonymous offerings, occasionally someone handed one of us an envelope with a hug, some thoughtful soul(s) mailed us Publix gift certificates during the holidays, and we frequently carried home bags and boxes of groceries from friends who shopped for our family as they provided for their own. One family single-handedly kept us going with a huge donation that almost completely paid the utilities and car payment for two months.
Clothes for the kids, little extras that people generally take for granted, someone paying for a prescription I needed, gifts for the kids at Christmas… this doesn’t mean that every time we walked through the church doors, something happened to benefit our circumstances, but there was certainly a lot of provision! I’m sure I’m forgetting something, because there was simply so much – but my heart will remember the love and concern long after details have faded away.
None of this should seem odd, it’s what Christians are supposed to do, how a caring church is supposed to act — except that after a life-time in church, neither Kevin nor I have ever experienced such a constancy of concern and generosity, such an outpouring long after the initial needs were generally known. Thank you for all your prayers, hugs, notes of encouragement, inquiries for particular needs, donations of every kind, and for your ministry to us, responding in love at so many levels.
Copyright 2010 by Tammi Mossman.
