In my own little corner...

Money Matters

I love watching God provide.

My cyber-friend Shannon blogged about God's provision today, and it reminded me that I had a praise report of my own to share.

I thought I was going to be late with my rent, because it was absolutely due yesterday, and my student loan check hadn't arrived  yet. The policy here is that it has to be in their building before they arrive to work on the morning of the 6th, or it's late (that means you can use their night deposit slot).   When it's late, you pay the full market value of your apt (my regular rent is almost $200 below market rate), AND a 10% penalty. That's 10% of the market value, of course.  So I stopped by yesterday and told them I'd be late, and that I'd pay it as soon as my loan check arrived.  Paying late meant I'd have had to pony up another $300+ over my regular rent - yuck.  But, as I told her, I'd rather pay later than write them an NSF check.

The List

And I think my first task is going to be to make a list of all the times that God has been faithful. I need something concrete that I can point to, to use as ammunition for the panic in my gut, to beat it back down.

The God who loves me has a plan for me, and just because I don't know what it is doesn't mean that things are not proceeding according to plan.

I think this is going to be a financial list, at the beginning... there are many other ways that God has blessed me and been faithful to me, but since finances are where my current battle is, I'm going to focus on those, for now.

1.   Out of the blue, totally unexpected, a new friend who is also struggling financially sent me some $$ after reading my blog entry yesterday.  I'm still stunned by my friend's generosity, as well as my Lord's quick response.

2.  Last Christmas-season, when I opened my Christmas card from a couple of very dear college friends, there was money inside it.

3.  Last Dec, both my credit card companies raised my credit limit. Normally, I would have asked them to not do that (do we really *need* huge limits on our credit cards?), but as it happens, these increases came when I was out of all other ready funds, and just in time to help me finance my trip home for Mom's funeral.

3.  Summer of 2003, when I was waiting on the next student loan check to come in, and getting ready to take yet another chunk out of my retirement account, my mom sent me a card with a check enclosed.  She proceeded to send me checks every month until her death.

4.  About 4 months after I was laid off, while I was counting out what I'd need to pay off my bills, and wishing that I could find extra dollars  from somewhere, I got a letter from my former company asking me how I wanted my pension paid to me.  Now, I had no idea that there was a pension plan there, in adddition to my 401(k). And the most amazing thing (to me),  was that the amount they had accrued for me over the three years I worked with them was exactly the amount I'd been trying to figure out how to find from somewhere. 

There are more, and I"ll be adding to this as I make time for it, but I think it's off to a good start, and I think that it's pretty impressive, when I take the time to look at it.