When my husband and I got married, we both had massive amounts of school loans. Loans that were worth a small townhouse back in the 1990’s. Ever since then, it has been an uphill battle to pay off debt. Like I have said on previous posts, if you owe that much money your thinking becomes, “What’s another $100, $200, $500?” It’s easy to become desensitized to debt.

Within a year of our marriage we were convicted about tithing. Several years later, we were called on several times to be a blessing to others financially. None of that was easy. In fact, it was a difficult lesson for me because I wanted to hold onto the little money we earned with all my might. I also struggled with the, “I am giving like You are asking, LORD, when are YOU going to bless ME?”

Selfish? Very.

I have been working on being content in my circumstances for years. I even blogged about it in the previous POST.

Yesterday was my birthday and God was faithful and gave me a blessing I couldn’t have imagined. I have had an outstanding debt that I have been faithfully paying down. As a matter of fact, it was the next debt on our debt snowball. My husband and I were excited because our goal was to have it paid off by the end of this year. Of course, Murphy came to visit in the form of uncertainty.

My husband’s company is going through an acquisition and although he has a position right now, the future remains, well, uncertain. The uncertainty is we don’t know if his position will be eliminated and if it is, will he have a new position to go to? All of this made us think through the possibilities and we decided, according to Dave’s advice when this kind of “storm may be brewing”, we had to temporarily stop our debt snowball. Use the extra money we would poured on the debt and put it in our emergency fund. Needless to say, we were disappointed because we’ve made great traction on getting rid of debt.

Anyway, I got a phone call and was told that the loan note was being called and had been forgiven. WHAT?!? I was shocked and crying the ugly cry speechless. What can you say to news like that? (Besides, thank you, of course).

The gift that this has given my family is incredible. Trying to raise three children on one income is not easy. My husband makes a good income, but it’s definitely not over the top. If it were, this may be an entirely different type of blog.

This blessing was not expected as I assume most blessings are not. It once again reminded me of God’s love for me and my family. I think HE recognized that we have been working hard to be good stewards of HIS money.

Lamentations 3:22-26 (NIV)

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

Anna