Very Blessed

Before we were married, you know back when we were young and idealistic, we both felt very passionate about living as debt free as possible and only buying things when we needed them. This included our cars, and it meant driving our cars until they were nearly into the grown, and only paying cash to buy a new one. And owning Toyotas it meant driving these cars for quite some time.

Up until recently owning an older car never bothered me. But also, up until recently the option to buy another car was always really there. Right before I was to return from maternity leave, after having Linnea, my department was closed and I lost my job. The plan prior to the lay off was I was going to be able to work from home part-time, and choose the hours I worked. As long as I got my projects completed, and except for the occasional meetings, I was going to be given the leeway of choosing what hours I worked based on what was best for my family. Putting Linnea in daycare, or even having a nanny never felt right to us, and my job was going to be our perfect balance of work and family. Loosing it was a hard blow. For, in an economical time like this one can hardly ask such demands on a new employer.

When I was choosing to drive an older car I never once felt ashamed of it. But when the actual choice was taken away my feelings started to shift. Then one night I was out and some comments were made about my car that escalated my sense of shame. I hate(d) that I felt ashamed. I prayed constantly for God to give me the strength to not be bothered by how people perceived me because I drove an older car. I prayed for strength to remember my convictions about money, to not care about my appearance more than doing what I believe is right. God continued to give me the strength, but I continued to struggle.

I talked to Joe about my struggle, and in his very kind Joe way he said, "Well, we could take out what is left in our savings and try to buy you a new car with it." I was elated! No more being ashamed of my old clunker, no more feeling like the world sees me as a financial failure, no more struggle! We agreed that we would both spend the next couple of weeks praying on the matter.

Each time I prayed about it though, I felt quite certain that God was asking me not to go forward with this. I knew in my heart it wasn't a wise plan, for we really need to keep our savings for a real emergency. So I told the Lord that I trusted his timing, and I knew that this was not His will, I said that I would wait on him, and trust him in providing us with a car. Joe's response was that he also didn't feel it to be a wise thing to do at this time, but that we should keep praying for God to provide a way to get a new car.

I also began to think about how much my identity was being defined by my appearance. How I was allowing myself to suffer simply because it hurt my pride to think people saw me as "poor". I began to question what kind of person I was becoming and what type of person I wanted to be. I thought about how my relationship with money, appearance and material things was going to affect L. What was I teaching her about her own worth, and what did I want to teach her?

Slowly I stopped thinking about my car so much. I would pray for a new one occasionally, but overall I began to feel peaceful.

Then in August, I read a blog post from a college friend (Erin's Thoughts in my "blogs I follow" section) about how Crazy Amazing our God is. That she too was driving a clunker, and had these huge medical bills but she knew that our Lord would provide for her. She wrote that she was excited because she also knew that one day she would be writing a post on exactly how our Crazy Amazing God did it. I sent her a Facebook message telling her how touched I was by her post, and how I was in a similar situation. I told her that I too drove a "clunker" and how I too struggled with it. This started a few correspondence between us that reveled how similar of a faith we had in our Lord, and how similar of a struggle we had in following him. It was very encouraging to know that there was someone else going through the same thing.

The very next day I called Joe's mom to wish her a happy birthday, and towards the end of the conversation she informed me that they would be sending us a check for $10,000 to go towards a car! I was floored. I honestly couldn't believe it. Joe was as stunned as I was. (I instantly told Erin what had happened and she too was stunned.) Then our search for a car began.

My mom was coming at the end of September, at the time it was mid-August, and I prayed a couple of times to be able to pick her up at the airport in my new car. But as the weeks went on and still no car I began to doubt that it would happen. We originally tried going to the car auction but for some reason or other it just never seemed to work out with the wholesale dealer who was to do our bidding. And then we started questioning whether or not we had enough money to get a newer car that also had low miles. We had started to feel that we were going to need to try saving a few more thousand dollars and try again after the first of the year.

But our God is Crazy Amazing and two nights before I was to pick my mom up at the airport on a whim I went on Craigslist to search their used car section. Instantly, I saw a beautiful 2004 Jetta Wagon with only 28,000 miles on it. The asking price, an unbelievable, $7,200! I instantly called the number, and by another miracle it was still there! When made an arrangement for us to see the car the next day when Joe got off work. The people selling it were a very nice Ukrainian couple trying to get out of debt so that they could go back to school. (Yes, we carfaxed, we KBB, and Joe did a mechanical check on it after he test drove).

It was with utter disbelief and amazement at God's amazing kindness that I drove to the airport to pick up my mom the very next day.

But the story doesn't end there. A similar thing happened to my friend Erin! Erin got an email from a friend who offered to give her a 2001 Nissan Sentra, that had everything Erin had been praying for! God is Crazy Amazing!


(this photo is not actually our Jetta but it looks just like it. I wanted to add a photo of it but strangely haven't taken one yet. )