Friday, October 24, 2008

The storehouse

From provision to abundance...
For those who don't know what has been going on in our family. My husband was recently laid off from his job. It is not a good time to be working in the housing industry. Having a large family of eight we have always lived "hand to mouth" so to speak. Gods provision has been nothing short of miraculous the entire 18 years of marriage. To even begin to tell the stories of needs met over the years would be to long for this blog. What strikes me now is how totally undeserving we are, yet the Lord continues to pour out His mercies new every morning.
There has been many moments of fresh understanding in our walk with the Lord and recently we had a very interesting reaction to our lack. We have given more easily and freely without a second thought since we have lost our job then we did when we had a regular pay check. Before we always looked at what we knew was coming in and what we knew had to go out and we allowed that to control our giving. We left no room for the Lord to move in our finances. Yet whenever we had one of those crisis where we needed in abundance above what we knew to expect God would work in our lives and send perfect provision. We were not freely giving yet we did freely receive perfect provision. Now...without a paycheck and with things stacked up against us God in all His grace and mercy has freed our hearts from that fear of finances and we have fervently given of everything we have received and we are more amazed then ever at the abundance that is flowing from the Love of the Father. I find it so interesting that when you realize all that you have isn't yours anyway but a gift from God you can freely show your gratefulness by giving back to Him from your abundance instead of from your lack. I stand amazed at what He is doing in our lives. Yes, there are some pretty daunting circumstances looming before us. We choose to not set our eyes upon those things but to keep our mind stayed upon the Lord. Our hope and our confidence is in Him alone.

4 comments:

Debra Kaye said...

Amen, my sweet sister. There's a very sweet smelling aroma in that home of yours!

Love you!

bp said...

Thank you for sharing how God is working in this situation for your family.

Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Alicia The Snowflake said...

Thank you for sharing how God is working in your life. Losing a job can be very difficult. I pray God will continue to shower you with His provisions as you freely shower others. Debra says it's your birthday. Happy Birthday! I hope you had a great day! Alicia

Addicted to Beadz said...

Stephanie,

Amazing. Thanks for sharing!

And, happy birthday.

Still praying,

Cheryl