Remember the Israelite's, who wandered and wandered and complained and complained? God kept providing in miraculous ways, leading them, and making a way when there was no way. A couple of times the Israelite's made a stone altar not to sacrifice, but to REMEMBER all the Lord had done for them (read Joshua 4). They did this to teach their future generations of the goodness of the Lord. Well, we want to do the same thing for our children and for our family. We want to recount all the ways the Lord has provided and directed our family, at times even before we could make our requests known to Him.
I wish I had started a blog "series" of sorts years ago that I would then continue to add to. Some of the entries would have been:
- Our home that the Lord gifted to us
- Stepping out into foster care
- Jake's new job at MyEmployees
- Benny & Wren officially Flaming's
And today, since these blog posts become our yearly family photo album & journal, I am going to write about another huge provision from the Lord. As of TODAY, our home is PAID IN FULL! Previous posts tell more of the story of how the Lord gifted us with our current home. We were able to buy this house for a steal and then do almost all the renovations out of pocket. This allowed us to have a minimal mortgage since 2012. What a gift this was!
In the fall of 2014, we followed the Lord's leading and stepped in to foster care. Jake was still teaching at a local christian school, Meg stopped working outside of the home (no second income) while we signed up for more kids with foster care. We had a challenging first placement who was with us for 2 months. This threw us into the deep end of foster care and showed us how much we needed the Lord's help to do this. Those He calls He equips! Then sweet Benny joined our family on January 20, 2015.
Then one Thursday evening, at the very end of May, Jake & I were talking. Jake mentioned what if the next school year was his last year of teaching. I was a little shocked since he really loved teaching and had never mentioned this before. We talked through his reasons, and what he would want to pursue. Fast forward not even three days and that Sunday morning, at church, another friend came up to Jake and said "our art director was fired on Friday. I gave my boss your name and number." Jake & I were both shocked - we hadn't even prayed any prayers yet for God's direction in Jake finding a new job. God's timing was also amazing - Jake was finishing up the school year in a week and was not under contract to teach the next school year 2015-2016. This was the only time he could accept a new job and not break his contract. God had already prepared our hearts for this change and then he just put the job in Jake's lap. Jake started at MyEmployees on June 15, 2015. Also the week before, we found out that Wren was on the way, and due early December. 2015 was a BIG year at our house - see it HERE. A big year of seeing God's sovereign and faithful hand in our family.
Two verses that come to mind as I recount these gifts from the Lord:
Psalm 118:23 "This is THE LORD'S doing; it is marvelous in our eyes."
Psalm 115:1 "Not unto us O Lord, but to YOUR NAME we give glory, because of your mercy and truth."
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