Good afternoon! For my regular readers, this is part 3 in the series, "How God provides for our needs during times of financial hardship", where I use personal examples of miracles God performed for my family during the difficult years of 2007-2009. If this is your first time visiting my blog spot, I would strongly suggest you read the posts entitled, "Come and See What God Will Do" and "Our 2008 Christmas Angel" to get all the background information.
I need to go back in time, when my husband (Brent) was working for an amazing and generous owner of an automobile dealership, to set the stage for this post. When Brent was promoted to Service Manager, not only did he have a good salary, but he was also given a demo car to drive - gas paid. It was like having a second vehicle and not having a car payment/insurance policy/or gas while driving it. We had that perk for 8 years.
If you remember, my husband had to leave that job due to a change in ownership. He found a job as a manager for an outdoor sports store in our little, Illinois town. If you also remember, we took a $30,000 down grade in pay. However, Brent did talk the owner of that business into providing a demo (an older truck) for him to use, just as he had at the auto dealer. What was so appealing about this job, was that there was an opportunity down the road for my husband to buy into the business and become a partner. Although our budget took a huge hit, and we were in the middle of the adoption process, we all liked this new job Brent had. He worked a few blocks away, was home for lunch every day, had our oldest son working by his side remodeling and cleaning up the business, and made the business very organized and productive.
It was during this time that we knew bankruptcy was in our near future and had moved to the country house we had found to rent 20 minutes away from our previous home. The job was going well, until one day, my husband found out some bad news. He came home one night and told me that there was another man that was part owner of that business that he was unaware of. That man had taken out a ghost loan on the business without the main owner knowing. The loan was such, that the business would never really prosper. This took away the dream of Brent becoming a partner.
We kept our eyes open for another job. One day, I was reading our small town paper (we are now living in the country rental house) and saw an advertisement for help needed at the local John Deere Store. Brent called, and the owner wanted to speak with him right away. After the interview, the owner thought Brent to be over qualified for the job, but opened up a place for him to be their service manager. So, he switched from managing automobiles to agriculture.
Brent was going to have the same salary as he had at the outdoor sports store, but we lost the demo, our second vehicle. Fortunately, the John Deere store was less than 10 minutes from our country home. Our budget was all ready bursting at the seams. We had no credit due to the bankruptcy. We had no money for another car.
By this time it was 2007 (or was it 2008?). Anyhow, our adoption process was finalized December 2006. We now had 6 children in the home ranging from ages 1 to 15, with one vehicle - our red suburban. Since work was close, Brent just drove the truck to work. If I needed to go somewhere that day, either I would take him to work in the morning or take him back after his lunch hour and pick him up after work. I hardly left the house, as the gas portion of the budget was small.
Bare with me, as I have to backtrack just a bit. Bailee had started taking ballet at age 3. She was a natural. The owners of the ballet company, Mr. and Mrs. "B", not only gave lessons, but were also professional performers and travelled all over the country. They were a Christian family and homeschooled their daughters. I developed a relationship with Mrs. "B" and she came to love Bailee. When we hit our financial crisis, I had to tell Mrs. "B" that I could not afford ballet lessons any longer. She hated to see Bailee leave and offered to give lessons to her for free! (another miracle.)
Back to the story. Over the summer of , our second oldest son, Blake, was playing baseball for our small town. We met a lot of nice folks. We became friends with a couple named Jim and Cheryl. Their son was Blake's age. They lived in town, but apparently were planning on moving to the country in the next couple of years. They were going to fix up a house that was right around the country block from us. Jim's uncle actually owned the house, but had to go into a nursing home. Jim was listed to inherit the house.
At this time, Brooklynne (our adopted daughter), was in preschool a couple hours a day. She would ride the bus to and from school - except on Wednesdays. Bailee had ballet lessons on Wednesday afternoons. So on Wednesdays, I would take my husband back to work after lunch and keep the suburban so I could pick up Brooky from school and head straight to ballet (which was 45 minutes away) and then pick up Brent after work.
One day in particular, we ended up not being able to go to ballet. Now, the school knew not to put Brooklynne on the bus on Wednesdays, unless I called to do otherwise. Well, guess what? I forgot to tell the school that I was not going to pick up Brooklynne. I got a call from the school asking where I was Oh, my! They did not put her on the bus! I needed to pick her up. I had no vehicle. Good grief!
I had to think quickly. I ended up calling Cheryl.
"I have a big favor to ask you. You are not going to believe what I did. I forgot to pick up Brooklynne and have no way to get her home. Could you pick her up and bring her to our house?"
And she did. We sat on the couch and I explained the story to her. We laughed as I shared that I was sure the school thinks that I am the worst parent ever for forgetting to pick up our special needs child from school! :)
That night at the supper table, I shared the day's events with my husband. As we were rinsing dishes, there was a knock at our kitchen window, which was strange, as the kitchen was at the back of the house. We looked out the window, and there was Jim and Cheryl.
We invited them in and asked what they were doing at our house so late at night. As we sat on the couch, Jim said that Cheryl had shared with him what had happened that afternoon. He said that he and his wife had talked., and that at his uncle's house, (the one right around the corner from us) sat a car in the garage that was not being used. He said that they would like to give it to us. That is was not the nicest car, but it ran.
We were astonished; speechless; moved to tears.
It was an old, gold Mazda. To most folks, it would have been a junky car. To us, it was beautiful - a token of God's love, affection, and provision for our family.
We drove that car proudly until it could no longer run.
Folk's, I cannot make this stuff up. I hadn't even prayed for a second car. I was trying to be content with one. God knew before I even asked. He will do the same for you.
Have a great evening!
Tori Lynne
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