Faith and Trust — One Woman’s Testimony
A stranger gave me $100 in gift cards just before Christmas 2015 while I was grocery shopping. My son and daughter each had a dollar to spend and they chose cheap 10 cent fish that would almost certainly meet their demise before the new year. As we watched the store employee plunge a blue fish net into the tank for our new pets, I heard a man’s voice behind me.
“Ma’am?”
I turned toward the voice and saw a young gentleman with a hat on, but not a baseball hat, one of those Irish Donegal kind. He held a paper out toward me, and thinking in that split second that he was an employee giving me a coupon I took it without even looking and said, “Thank you.”
The paper was not a coupon at all but two $50 gift cards.
I stared at the cards and glanced at my children who were reaching out for their fish, not noticing the exchange between me and the gift card man. Mere seconds passed and as I looked up to mutter something of a stunned “thank you”, he was gone. I momentarily stopped breathing, my friends, because this blind gesture of good will hit me during a time when we were so desperately in need.
That gift card brought a years’ worth of tears from my eyes and as I opened the card holder a message was written on the insert:
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast your anxiety on him for he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5: 6–7
Just two years earlier, we were abounding in middle class stability, protected by great insurance and living in comfort. Suddenly Peter, my husband, had some severe health concerns that included blacking out behind the wheel on the expressway and the discovery of fluid on his brain. We made the decision to make some lifestyle changes that supported our mindset of living out a life we were happy to live. Health concerns often prompt this sense of urgency to stop wasting time and get busy living.
This one change started a chain reaction of challenges for the next year and a half:
- The short sale of our home
- Bankruptcy
- Unemployment
- Over 25 job interviews
- Applying for food stamps
- Our electricity, gas, and phone were shut off
- Severe stress on our marriage
Years of paying our bills on time and building a credit score of a respectable 738 now meant nothing to the companies who claimed they wanted to “work with us”. I started saying to creditors,
“I have to feed my children and buy diapers first, I can’t give you any money. If you must send me to collections, that’s what you have to do.”
Both Peter and I were working multiple jobs and at the same time, interviewing for positions that would sustain our meager life. Week after week we sunk deeper and deeper into debt hoping that Peter’s latest job interview would be “the one.” Drowning and not knowing what to do to repair our situation, we decided to meet with Tim, a wonderful financial advisor, who explained the options we had in light of our current situation. In the past, I scoffed at people who chose to collect unemployment and thought homeowners who opted for a short sale were irresponsible.
And bankruptcy! My thoughts about bankruptcy before we went through a season of hardship was of failure and an easy way out.
I cannot even begin to explain the intense anxiety, stress, and depression these situations can put on a family, not to mention the fact that we had 3 close relatives die in one year. My life is typically an open book but when it got ugly, I hunkered down and wanted to quietly brave the storm alone.
But I wasn’t alone. Amid my weary state, and I was weary — was the quiet voice of God.
You see, when you have nothing and everything is going wrong, and nothing you do seems to fix your situation, God is there. It’s just so hard to believe when you’re hurting and exhausted, but thankfully, I was created with a stubborn spirit. Just when my heart would near the moment of giving up, that quiet voice would grow a bit louder — nudging me to be courageous enough to see what was on the other side of all this darkness.
This word from God wasn’t in the form of hour-long Bible studies and eloquent, reflective mediation of His word. I simply prayed, over and over and over again, all day — “God loves me. He is helping me right now.”
That’s it. Because that is all I could muster in my heart. I could barely breathe from the stress and anxiety, so I reasoned that if God was the loving Father I believed him to be, He would cut me a break for right now in terms of longevity and creativity in spending time with Him.
I was crying most days and I was scared — but I was willing to partner with God. That small sliver of casting my care on Him made way for a little burst of strength. I got tired of hearing myself complain about my problems. I was done being a Sunday morning Christian. I was willing to trust Him with the impossible elements of my life because I certainly was not doing a good job running it!
This stubborn wall of self effort was finally broken down by our then 8-year-old son. He came home from school one day and said he felt embarrassed at lunch. When I asked him why, he said:
“I told a friend I wish I had what he had in his lunch and my friend said, “Just have your mom buy it at the store.” I told him we didn’t have a lot of money for food. Mom, are we poor?”
My heart broke when I realized that all of our attempts to make life appear “normal” for our kids had failed. It’s so hard to ask for help, yet alone believe you can get out of a hell on earth situation. Once we let people in a bit, the help came — just enough to keep us fed and living in our own home with a roof over our heads — with the electricity and gas on.
That huge gift of food and shelter, was enough for me to gain a bit of relief.
After a year of searching, Peter was offered a job that would allow us to regain financial stability in our life. Thank God! And then 5 months later he was rear-ended by a man texting. A severe back injury threw us right back in the situation we left: scared, unsure, unstable, and broken.
Yet that glimmer of hope — to see what was on the other side of this madness — still burned in my heart.
Peter and I truly know what we need to survive. I’ve been meditating on a specific scripture for the last 4 years that fills me with hope to move forward. These simple words now course through my veins as I realize and have lived exactly what it states:
I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:12–13
After that car accident, we went around the same mountain of trials, but what changed was that root of a promise that God would never leave us. We knew this train wreck of a season couldn’t last forever, and we were fixed on seeing it through to the other side.
Along with this desire to see what God had planned for us, while we were waiting, we decided to get our mind’s off ourselves and plant good seeds helping other people out. Honestly, I was sick of hearing myself stress and complain and worry — plus it was doing absolutely NOTHING to better our situation.
I used to question how we could have pulled through the stress and fear, and finally breaking through the darkness, I see we were only able to survive this with the help of our loving, merciful, and patient God. He sent our friends and family to put into a tangible message that He loves us.
A glimmer of trust in God turned our life around, and we are slowly coming out of that storm. Life is far from perfect, in fact, 2017 proved to be one of the most challenging yet, but we’ve chosen to trust. The sliver in my heart that was willing to work with God in 2015 has expanded into a good chunk of 50% of my heart. Now, when we’re faced with a challenge or hardship, we ask ourselves — Do we choose to trust God or trust ourselves? Not every time, because I’m still a work in progress, but I’m working on making trusting God a habit instead of a last resort.
You never know what is going on in someone’s life. I urge you to love with patience. Love with a compliment or a hug. Resist the urge to judge and put down, to gossip and assume.
I’ll leave you with this word from A.W. Tozer:
“The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven’t yet come to the end of themselves. We’re still trying to give orders, and interfering with God’s work within us.”
“God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust.”
