Encouragement

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"Why do we have all this stuff?" I demanded of my husband. "Why did we spend all that money on all of this? We don't even use most of it!"

My husband looked over at me. He shrugged. I wish, sometimes, that men showed just a little more emotion. "I guess we thought we needed it at the time."

I fumed silently, mad at 'us' for wasting all that money, money that we desperately needed now. We had so many things just laying around, taking up precious space in our tiny, tiny house.
It was hard enough fitting in the people who had
to live here!

I started sorting things out. I ran ads to sell all the perfectly good, perfectly useable, stuff we had that we 'needed' so badly at some point in time. We never used it. Never even gave it a second thought, most of the time. It seemed to me that the more stuff we bought, the less stuff we used.

We were being forced to either use it or lose it. We are in the middle of a bankruptcy. This situation tends to force you into a careful analysis of where your money goes.

Most of my money went to books, followed closely by all sorts of household gadgets, helpers that never got to help because I usually discovered they were more trouble than they were worth.

My husband spent a lot of money on tools. At the time he acquired these tools, he actually did need them as he ran his own construction company.

The business is defunct now, so I don't see any
point in having ten or twenty of every tool. He doesn't either. We only need one of each, to keep the household running efficiently.

We have the voice (figuratively) of our bankruptcy trustee reminding us that HE WILL BE PAID FIRST, EVERY SINGLE WEEK, FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS,or we will be hearing from him, and not pleasantly, posthaste (literally)!.

This reminds me of when we started that afforementioned construction company. The tax accountant looked across his desk at us, quite
sternly, I thought, and said, "You absolutely must pay your business taxes on time, as planned. I don't care if you have to starve during those weeks that your taxes are scheduled. YOU DO NOT WANT THE U.S.GOVERNMENT BREATHING DOWN YOUR NECKS, DO YOU?"

That was kind of scary, to be honest. Needless to say, although we had no intention of doing otherwise, those taxes were always paid, and more often than not, early.

Recently, I have rediscovered all sorts of things I forgot I even had. I am finding new, practical uses for all kinds of things. I am providing things to others that they need, and will use.

I am simplifying my household. You can do a lot of that when you have no choice.

Because we have no money, and most weeks must choose between eating and paying bills, we are
finding out how much we really do have.

The stuff we are choosing to keep is finally being enjoyed. We spent so much time running around town buying new stuff that we forgot about all the things we already had. We have been forced to spend time together because we can't afford to go out. We are
listening to our children more, and each other. We have all that time we wasted acquiring our stuff to sit back and enjoy our stuff.

I am reading books I forgot I even had. My hubby and I have spent several evenings, TV off, just sitting in the living room, listening to all the CD's we bought, together. Sometimes we even sing.
We can't sing. We sing anyway (as painful as our
children proclaim this to be, they still seem to enjoy it). Sometimes we just sit and listen and smile at each other. A lot of time is spent TALKING!

In many ways, this bankruptcy has freed us. We are being reminded, almost on a daily basis, of how much God cares for us. People are suddenly just giving us things, things we needed but cannot buy right now, for no reason we can determine, other than that they are being led by God also.

I am awestruck that even in the middle of the chaos that has become our lives, God has been so good to us. Undeserving as we are, we're all basking in the glow. We're feeling it!

He has unleashed our creativity. We are learning a whole new way of being. He is keeping us sane.
He is showing us how little stuff a person really needs to live.

He is showing us that we need Him.

That's all we need.

Just Him. He is providing everything else, even down to deciding which bill we can manage to put off for just a little bit longer, and which grocery store has the best sales this week.

God is alive, and providing, even today, when all the world thinks it is self-sufficient. It
isn't. He is. His angels are walking among us, and He is sending them everywhere they are needed. Even here, to my little house. Where we were once convinced that WE were self-sufficient.

We will get through this, and the next thing, and the next. There will always be something popping up to challenge us.

And God will always be there to see us through.

It just gives me goosebumps thinking about it.

I hope you have them too.

God is good, even when things are bad.

To all of us.

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