Faith in a car seat, pipes, and a mailbox

If you have been in church any amount of time, you have heard a missionary or a pastor speak about how the cupboards were bare and they were not sure where the next meal was coming from. Then, one day, someone left a bag of groceries on the porch or a mysterious check showed up in the mail box. I had heard all those stories. I had read biographies of the giants like George Muller who sat the kids in his orphanage down to a meal, when there was no meal to serve, and they prayed and thanked God IN ANTICIPATION of the meal they knew HE would provide. I remember hearing that story and others like it and thinking...”wow, I would love to see God work a miracle like that in my life.” However, I remember thinking, “But, I really don’t want to sit down to dinner and not know where dinner was coming from.” Fast forward to this past August when I walked into our bedroom, shaking and crying, with yet another positive pregnancy test while Ryan slept with our six month old miracle in our bed. I cried. I questioned how on earth we were going to do this. My body had just had a baby...and I had to do it again? Our bills from Leah were still being paid off. I remember thinking there was just no way. But somehow, God has sustained this little life (and me). I sit here, with my feet up because my ankles kind of look like I have softballs attached to them (but I’m a 35 week pregnant high school teacher so my feet don’t really take a lot of breaks), marveling how far God has brought me and little “no-name.” Then, our OB told us the cost of this new baby and we nearly fainted. Then, somehow, we found room on a credit card or two (sorry Dave Ramsey...it had to be done) and paid that bill off. Next, our insurance at work changed and we discovered we would owe even more for this baby (not including whatever the hospital decides to charge us once she makes her appearance). Once again...I panicked. Where would this money come from? How would we pay such a big amount? But once again, God provided. It was creative (and may have involved Uncle Sam and president Trump’s new child tax credit) but it got paid. However, somewhere along the 32nd week mark, it dawned on me that this baby needs to be able to ride in our car...so we started pricing car seats and a stroller since Leah is JUST starting to walk well and I cannot imagine trying to wrangle a five year old, a one year old and an infant in and out of stores with just a cart. The sticker shock got to me. No quality items were inexpensive and the list of things we needed kept growing. So, we picked something we wanted to planned to get those items when we could. But God planned differently. A far away, but much beloved, friend sent me a text out of the blue one night to inform me she had purchased and shipped my double stroller for the girls. I cried and thanked her. Then, my amazing co-workers told me they were throwing me a diaper shower (which was another big stress...two kids in diapers...yikes). They didn’t just shower me with diapers and wipes...they bought our very costly new car seat. I cried. I was overwhelmed. Every need met...some of them before I even asked God for them. Then, last weekend, our whole plumbing system (minus the kitchen sink, oddly enough) totally backed up and stopped working. Now, for a very large pregnant woman...a working bathroom is pretty much a non-negotiable. It was not a livable situation and every “expert” we consulted said, “This will not be a small or inexpensive job...get ready.” And I cried. How would we do it? Once again...I asked God to resolve it. But if I am honest, I didn’t really expect Him to do it. I mean...it is a sewer system. Could the all-Powerful, All-Creating ONE really intervene in that instance? So, my amazing family came to our rescue. My Father-in-law came and snaked and did gross jobs that no one would ever want to volunteer to do. My dad used some of his hotel credits to put us up in hotels (which Joel loved because it was an adventure to travel from hotel to hotel all weekend long). We got a plumber out to the house and what was projected to be a VERY big job came out to be one very expensive wipe that had been flushed when it shouldn’t have been (my money is on my smallest “helper”). Now, we would still have to pay this guy...but at least it woulnd’t be thousands. However, God still provided. Loving people sneaked little monetary gifts into the mail, into my hand, wherever they could. I was humbled. It was the exact amount the plumber quoted us. I couldn’t believe it. All those years of hearing the stories of faith...it was happening to me. I could hear the lyrics from one of my old favorites in my head “Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I’ve proved him o’re and o’re.” I used to sing it and feel like a huge hypocrite because I hadn’t proved Him. I hadn’t found myself at the end of my own rope beggin Him to step in and provide as only He can. Now I had seen it. Not just one time, but dozens in the past few months. We joke all the time about the fact that this little baby has no name. We have tossed out hundreds of them. None of them fit. None of them hit us as the “perfect name.” I can tell you one thing though...her middle name will very likely be Faith. From the moment we knew she existed, this whole roller coaster ride has been about faith. Am I going to trust the God who formed her to provide for her and for us? It makes me think of a verse in I Samuel where Samuel takes a stone and names it Ebenezer (don’t worry..we aren’t going to call this baby Ebenezer...we like her a lot). At the end of the verse, after he sets the stone up as a memorial of all God has done he says, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” I feel like, every time I get out that double stroller I will be reminded that so far, the Lord has helped us. Every time I buckle a baby in the new car seat, I will remember that He has helped us. Every time I use these WORKING and functional bathrooms or wash a load of clothes...there it is again...that Ebenezer of God’s goodnesss and providence. I hope I never forget this time. This time when I foolishly doubted His providence and care and He was there to remind me. He didn’t just remind me once or twice...but over and over again. Faith...faith in a car seat, a stroller, a baked up sewer pipe. FAITH.