He Deals Bountifully With Us

In our family growing up you were never aloud to call someone a "loser".  It was the cool term to call someone if you were a bully in public school and naturally we all picked it up and started using the term at home to our brothers and sisters.  It didn't go over well.  Mom and Dad felt it was very demeaning, so I remember Mom coming up with a new term/phrase if we were less than impressed with a sibling, "You are someone that doesn't make good choices!"  It worked!  We stopped calling each other bad names!

The reason I share that is because I was going to write this morning about what "loser" I am, but I decided I should say, "I am someone who doesn't make good choices!"  Why am I calling myself that?!  Because I set every single clock in the house back one hour except the one in my bedroom. Stop laughing.  I knew this!  I just forgot that I had not set it.  So when I woke up and looked at the clock, even though it was way ahead of my time to get up, I got up anyway because I knew I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep.  I also knew I had lots of laundry to do, stuff like that, so I thought I'd make the most of it.

I went downstairs, made coffee, excercised, read my Bible, wrote the blog (please note when I published it two days ago.....) and then suddenly I looked at the computer screen.  5 a.m.  Impossible. It should have been well past 6 by this point.  Nope.  I'd been up since 4, not even knowing it. Actually awake since 3:15, but had laid in bed trying to sleep for a half hour.  This was why I was going to call myself a loser, but I won't use the word loser because loser is a bad word.  (That's what my kids do when I say, "Don't say stupid!"  They'll say, "Ok, I won't say stupid.  Stupid is a bad word. You won't hear me saying the word stupid.  If I say stupid I'll get in trouble."  How many times did they say the word stupid?!)  Well, I made the most of it!  I ended up having to lay down by 11 am for a few minutes as I was turning into a zombie, but I made it through the rest of the day!  Early to bed. And I still haven't changed my clock.

A great story again in provision this week.  We've been so grateful for the regular income that has started to come with the new job.  I dare say I wish it were more as we have to finance the other entrepreneurial work my husband has, so even though there is money coming in, it is always spoken for way before it comes in.  We won't see payment from the other job until spring!  It is a fine line we are walking and sometimes we still see the accounting that has to be done and we raise our eyebrows in wonder....how will this work?  Tuesday was one of those days.

We had automatic payments coming out and no automatic payments going in.  Hmmmmm.....In the past my husband would have communicated that to me and I would have panicked.  This week he didn't even tell me.  Not because he wanted to hide it from me, but because he had already told the Lord the situation.  He said later he had prayed, "Lord, you know these payments are coming out and you know there isn't anything coming in.....I trust you for a way to provide."  He's learning that over the years all the fear he had was all wasted.  He regrets all the times he didn't enjoy life as much as he could have because of fears he had with respect to trusting the Lord for provision.  I didn't even know that about it him.  He's only shared that recently with me.

About mid-day, I got a call from him.  "There's a cheque waiting for us."  I didn't really think anything of it because I didn't know the pickle we could have been in.  He came home later and said, "A miracle happened today!"  Then he explained why the cheque was so important.  Nothing bounced in the account because of that unexpected money.  We were owed that money....at some point this fall, but why did it come that day?  Because we worship the same God that George Mueller did.  As we reread his story, it is such an encouragement to see how much he relied on God and to see how God provided over and over at the last minute.  We were so grateful!  But I'm more grateful to learn that my husband is gaining victory over his fears, too.  Both of us sleep well at night knowing our lives are in His hands.

I had another small but significant miracle that same day.  We finally slaughtered our big bull.  We have several hundred pounds of ground beef in our freezers.  In just a matter of days my children are already officially tired of meatballs, burgers, spaghetti.....you name it, I've made it.  What a spoiled culture we are!  Anyway, when the beef first arrived, we told the older boys to put it in the freezers. We never checked to see if they had done it properly which we should have!

Yesterday I went down to get a different roast out of the freezer only to find the freezer partly open and the meat in the door cold, but completely thawed.  Oh no!  I was certain we had lost it all and nearly died with the thought of the waste.  I smelled a terrible smell, but wait, was that rotten meat or just the kitty litter that hadn't been changed in a looooong time......I think it was the kitty litter!

I opened one of the packages of thawed meat...seemed ok.  The meat had thawed, but fortunately had been kept cold the whole time.  The freezer was still working, it just had been left open an inch.  I quickly took all the meat out of the door of the freezer and unplugged it so I could thaw it enough to scrape off all the new frost that had built up.  It was an all-day affair, waiting for it to thaw, scraping it all out, taking out all the meat, putting it all back in.....but it was good and another lesson learned - make sure the door is 100% closed!  These little tests can be really frustrating and a reason to blow up, but we maintained composure.  I turned it into an opportunity to get everyone downstairs and we did a full-out clean (well, an opportunity in my eyes, not the kids' eyes!).  Now, everything is back in order, meat is saved, basement is tidy.....whew!  What is the miracle?  I haven't been going downstairs for meat in a looong time.  We had enough in our upstairs freezer or in a different one downstairs that I hadn't checked on that freezer in ages.  But that day, I thought, I feel like something else today besides ground beef.  If I had waited even one more day, I wonder if we would have lost the whole freezer full of meat.  I was so grateful!!!

Psalm 13 is one of my favourite psalms.  Stuart Townend wrote a great song about it called "How Long?"  So often this is what we cry out to the Lord....How long this or how long that?  We want our circumstances to change.  Here's verse 1 and 2:

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
    and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?


But what I love about this Psalm is the writer turns his "how longs?" to no longer questioning, but accepting of his situation and realizing God has a "steadfast love for him".  He realizes he can even "sing to the Lord" because he has "dealt bountifully" with him.  

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
    because he has dealt bountifully with me.

This is the point of this post....instead of questioning "how long?", we daily choose to trust Him and we realize through these small examples that He isn't ignoring us, but He's actually dealing "bountifully" with us.  Reading that psalm encourages me, too, that I can still be honest before Him as I do wonder, "How long?????" But it is also a slight rebuke to stop and reflect on His goodness and to turn, as the psalmist does, and remember all that He does on a daily basis.