Our Story Part 2

"Honey! I Quit my Job!"

By 1991 our budget was working pretty well, I thought. Carolyn was doing way better than the first two years. She would work with me on it and was even writing checks, paying the regular bills, which took a load off me. I took care of balancing the checkbook and made sure the money was there. In 1991, Carolyn worked for a mortgage loan company as a supervisor of 50 ladies. She had been under a lot of pressure and wanted to quit. She was not always in the best of moods at home, but I didn't really know how much it was affecting her. I kept saying to her, just hold on a little longer. We had gotten involved in a "Christian" investment group just before we started our budget in 1986, (more about that later) and it was costing us a lot of money each month, so we needed her paycheck. Our Heavenly Father was beginning to teach me a lesson of trusting Him.

One Monday evening in February 1991 we went with a group to hear a well-known preacher that was a 2-hour drive for us. Her attitude that night seemed to be better than it had been the last few weeks. She was smiling and seemed to be happy. We arrived back home at 1am. We went to bed, then she said to me, "sit up and look at me". "I quit my job today!" I can't tell you how I felt. I knew we needed her check to pay those investment bills. She said, "I'll cut grass". I was in shock. All I could see was bankruptcy. When I said a lot of money I mean $300 to $800 a month, which we had paid for the preceding 24 months. It took me about two weeks before I could think straight. How would we be able to pay those bills each month?

How I would like to say that in Malachi 3:10 God said to prove Him to give. He said He could pour out a blessing that we could not receive. He also said He would rebuke the devourer for our sake. Now the investment group did not come to us for any money that next month or the next month after that, but each month I was concerned that it would. For the next 24 months, we didn't have to pay extra to the investment group. God rebuked the devourer, and He poured out blessings also. We want to think of a blessing as pouring out of money, but it was not money. Our home life was improved 1000%. Sex was up 1000%, Understanding was up a 1000%. Communication between us was up 1000%. And not only that, her dad got sick about the same time and she was able to spend time and help him before he died.

Now, after that night she told she had quite her job, it took me about 2 weeks before I could begin to look at our budget plan seriously again. I was a little depressed, yes I'm a Christian. We are human and I was facing something I had not faced before. I think God was teaching me to trust Him. I was only looking at what the investment group problems could do to us (It was the devourer).

I started from scratch and reworked our budget again with 36% less income. As I went through it I could make it work on paper with $0 surplus to do anything else. She cut grass like she said. We bought a JD mower, trailer and some other equipment. She made enough to make up any short fall in the budget. It was real tight again but we made it. Another blessing that came from her cutting grass was our two sons were able to help her part of the time. It was a small operation, but she did have two or three commercial accounts.

She cut grass for two years every day. Then one of her Customers that knew she had worked in customer service in the past told her that his company had an opening in customer service and wanted to talk to her. She told them the salary she wanted, but not a supervisory position. They said ok and she went to work.

Now she was making more money, but the investment group problems began to awake again. After two years of not having to pay extra to the group, it started again. God was faithful. He supplied all our needs and rebuked the devourer. By this time it was funny to me. God is a good God. Our giving to missions actually increased during this time.

Before all this happened, if you had asked me what do you want to go through for God to show you that you can trust him, I would not have picked this situation, but looking back, I'm so thankful.