A Week of Accountability - Romans 5

"Stay committed. It may look like you’re loosing ground, but as long as you keep at it, there is still hope to pull it off. If you quit just because the odds are against you, you trade possibility for failure". - Lauren Yost #R15LC

“And endurance produces character, and character produces hope…”- Romans 5:4

A Week of Hope for the Discouraged - Job 6

"The misery that weighs you down may feel so heavy it impedes your every attempt to move forward. But even the heaviest weights tied around you cannot impede your hope – cannot stop your prayers. No matter how bleak the prospects seem, your prayers will be heard and your patience rewarded." - Lauren Yost #R15LC

“If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas… Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for… What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient? ”- Job 6:2-3a, 8, 11

A Week of Hope for the Discouraged - Job 7 - 8

“… I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me. When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn…. But if you will seek God earnestly and plead with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your prosperous state.”- Job 7:3-4, 8:5-6

A Week of Hope for the Discouraged - Job 4

“Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees. But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed. ” - Job 4:4-5

A Week of Hope for the Discouraged - Psalm 35

“Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck… But I pray to you, Lord , in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters…The Lord hears the needy and does not despise his captive people. Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them, for God will save Zion ….”- Psalm 35:1, 13-14, 33-35a

A Week of Hope for the Discouraged - Psalm 3

“Lord, how they are increased who trouble me! Many are they who rise up against me … But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter of my head … I lay down and slept; I wakened again, for the Lord sustains me.”- Psalm 3:1, 3, 5 (AMP)

Modern-Day Miracles

You know, you’ll hear people say that the miracles of the Bible don’t happen in modern times, yet our last two years seem to be a living testimony that they do.

We have always been a two-income family – it’s a financial necessity, not a lifestyle option. We’ve certainly never lived a lavish lifestyle – never even been able to buy a house, but we were saving for one… along with saving for the boys’ college and retirement and the unknown rainy day. So in February of 2008 when the rain of unemployment came for Edward we felt slightly prepared financially for a short-term gap but greatly prepared spiritually that it was part of God’s plan and that He would open new doors and always take care of us.

Being the chronic planner that I am (which I’m sure gives God a good laugh from time to time) I sat down and mapped out our finances to see how long the severance and savings would take us and I knew it would be several months before we really had to panic. But since you never know, we started making deep cuts to most of the non-essentials, but having faith that something would come through before the reserves dried up, we still continued to contribute to retirement, college fund, pay extra to the credit cards, but first and foremost, tithe.

It never even occurred to us to cut tithing out of the budget. Everything we had, whatever amount that was now, was still all from God. We were going to be trusting Him with our lives and our future why would we suddenly stop trusting Him with our finances? Of course, we had no idea that shortly after Edward became unemployed, the market would crash, our retirement would lose almost half its value, unemployment levels in this country would reach record highs and it would be over 2 years of faith and finances tested. But each day at a time, each week at a time we had faith that God would provide when the time was right and take care of us until that time came... until His time came.

On my financial spreadsheet (which I fondly nicknamed the countdown to poverty) I had drawn a line in the financial sand that was the official “panic point.” And by God’s miracle, every time we got close to it, God pulled us away from it. Over these last two years we experienced miracle after miracle as unexpected needs were met with unexpected resources. Sometimes it felt like God was just dropping money out of the sky when we needed it. When the car needed repairs, I got a promotion at work; when money was tight at Christmas, an anonymous donor from our Fair Oaks Church family paid for the boys to go to Winter Meltdown; when I was diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery, our tax refund exactly covered all my medical bills and deductible; the list goes on and on. Every time we had a specific need or came close to our financial “panic point,” God came through or sent one of his angels.

Over these past several of years, I have been blessed abundantly at work with several promotions and with each one, I immediately increased my tithe and was blessed again. And not only did we continue to faithfully tithe all this time, but somehow we managed to never miss a bill, pay off one car and two credit cards, and last month, feeling so blessed by God, we stepped out on faith and signed up for a regular online donation to Vision T.O. and within days, Edward got his job.

And as if all that wasn’t testament enough to God’s hand in our life and our checkbook, here’s the real miracle….

After Edward got his job we sat down to layout a financial recovery plan (there’s me planning and God laughing again) and realized that in this last year alone, the outgoing expenses that we actually paid exceeded the money that came in by over $60,000. How is that possible? Mark 9:23, that’s how! We sure didn’t have that kind of money in some reserves or savings. No credit cards. God paid those. I don’t know how He did it, but I sincerely believe that our faithfulness to trust God with our lives and our finances and to continue to tithe without fail was returned to us in blessings 10 fold.

And the final miracle was that on the day Edward got his job, our savings account was within $30 dollars of the exact balance it was the day we started this journey. Again, how can that be? Luke 6:38!

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

There is no doubt in my mind that God took care of us and stretched what we had to meet our needs because we trusted Him to. We trusted Him with our future and we trusted Him with our finances and only begins with tithing.

Now if that’s not a modern-day miracle of Biblical proportion, I don’t know what is.

876 Days of Hope

….or, 125.14 weeks
….or, 31.29 months
….or, 2.40 years
….or, 2 years, 4 months and 20 days

But who’s counting?

Without question, Edward and I are filled with joy to be putting this agonizingly long chapter of our lives behind us, but there are parts of it that I walk away knowing they were some of the best years of our family’s history and growth.

If God had given us a sneak preview and told us that Edward would be without work for nearly 2 ½ years, I’m quite sure I would have experienced some severe anxiety and been tempted to doubt that God knew what He was doing.

But because God only lights our path one step at a time, it actually made it easier, not harder, to put our hope in Him each day – having ultimate confidence that He would keep His promise and take care of us and reward us for our faithfulness and trust.

And He did! It’s still remarkable to me that we were able to stretch my single income and our savings this long, all while faithfully tithing to our church and giving to other charities, and we’ve never missed a household payment. Sure, there are many things we’ve done without and our family savings account is way behind where it could have/should have been by now, but some of life’s best lessons came from this chapter, many I hope to carry into the next.

I learned that God has always got my back. God has a plan and it's always better than mine. And God's timing is perfect! People can say those things, and they can’t believe they mean it, but not until it’s really tested with life’s trials can you really know you meant it.

I learned there’s a lot I can live without. God knows, we didn’t live a lavish lifestyle before, but even things like going to the movies every Saturday. For four people it’s almost $80 dollars a trip, over $4000 a year. Although my teenagers may disagree, cutting back and only going to the movies once every few months didn’t cause any lasting psychological damage and it made the trip to the theatre that much more special.

I learned celebrations are richer without the presents. I suppose as adults, we all actually “know” that, but when we reinforce the opposite message with our actions, it’s hard to sell that message to our kids. Christmas and birthdays especially had probably gotten excessive, especially for the kids. But establishing a “one-gift” expectation really made you appreciate the value of that one gift and drew the focus back to the purpose of the celebration.

I learned that we have really good kids. Well, of course I already knew that, but they have been real troopers with all the things that we’ve had to cut back on and are more appreciative of the things we are still able to do and get. Today we took the kids to the movies for the first time in months and I think they thanked us four or five different times. They’ve grown a lot through this chapter, in more ways than one.

Edward and I were also very humbled by how incredible, generous, caring and thoughtful our family, friends and especially our Fair Oaks Church family are. Not that there was ever a doubt that those characteristics applied, but more, perhaps, that we were deserving recipients of the friendships, prayers and generosities extended. Edward and I are both introverts and pretty quiet people and I think we were a bit surprised that with all the many people who might need support (whether it be a well timed prayer or the delivery of a home cooked meal) that we would be on anyone's radar.

One of the things that I things that meant the most to me during this chapter, and that I will actually miss, was the low-hanging-fruit opportunities to witness to people asking how I could be so positive and full of joy and hope while watching my financial security and life savings evaporate before my eyes and not knowing when or if things would ever turn around. Talking about my security being in God’s sovereign will for my life and knowing that things would turn around just in time – God’s time – and how much God was blessing our lives in other ways, were a great window of opportunity.

Now, as we anticipate what the next chapter holds for the Yost family, I am grateful for the lessons learned over the last 2 ½ years and can’t wait to see how God is going to use us and what He is going to teach us next.

Thank you, again, for all the prayers and encouragement we were so blessed by.

GOD IS GOOD!

GOD IS FAITHFUL!

GOD HEARS OUR PRAYERS AND ANSWERS THEM!

AFTER 2 ½ YEARS OF "WAIT" ... TODAY GOD"S ANSWER IS "YES"!!!