God Changes a Wife’s Heart During a Financial Crisis

 

Photo Credit -freeimages.com Bob Smith
Photo Credit -freeimages.com Bob Smith

From a precious sister in Christ – the same one God is taking from major fear to strong faith:

I am writing to you again to share one more incident that took place yesterday and through which God spoke to me. I am excited when there is even a very small progress in the way I think or behave, so I am sharing it with you once more 🙂

We believe God led us for me to quit my job when I had my first daughter so that I become a stay at home mom and raise her myself. Since then our finances have been very tight and in many instances we saw God provide in very unexpected ways, to find ourselves now, two years later, with a second baby and lacking nothing, though facing various challenges financially.

One of the ways God has provided for us was through state funding. This year, too, we were to apply for this aid that was to help us cover some expenses that have been gathering. It was my husband’s “job” to do this. Yesterday though when I asked him, he realized he had been busy and stressed with work and had forgotten to apply and we had missed the applications date. It is now too late.

I had been planning in my mind which bills we could finally pay off with this fund (this is “my job”). I was shocked and couldn’t believe that he missed something so important for us. He told me he was taking care of it but in the end he missed it, although it should have been a priority in his “to do” list.

So, my first reaction was: “You are kidding me, right? You didn’t apply???”

This could be considered a “usual” response from me, though I wish it not to be such. I felt so greatly disappointed, I felt that he failed to take care of our family in a way that was his responsibility…that I trusted him to take care of this and he failed me. This is my basic trust issue that is causing me to be controlling (as I have described you in the past). I just felt so greatly let down and didn’t know what to do about it.

However, within a few moments, the Holy Spirit started a discussion with me that changed the course of my thoughts.

I started thinking:

  1. My husband is responsible and always trying to take care of us, but he is also just human. That means that he WILL fail me at times, and I should not be so surprised. I am supposed to be gracious, because I also am human, and under the same circumstances, it is possible that I could have failed the same way.
  2. This is to show me where I really put my trust for our family’s provision. Am I focusing too much on the state aid and on us doing everything “right” to receive as much help as possible? Or am I really trusting God to provide for us, with or without the state aid, and despite us not doing everything right? This was the time for me to decide where I was going to put my trust.
  3. Here lies an opportunity that is far more precious than the money. It is the opportunity for me to react as God wants me to react. It is the opportunity for me to change – the opportunity to love my husband and trust God. I really felt in my heart that this is really precious, in a way that it may actually have been better that we lost this fund, if that means that I could be gaining spiritually through this. I really felt that I wanted to grasp this opportunity! This helped me pass the disappointment and hurt to feel joy and peace. It helped me let go of this fund in my heart and rejoice for what God is doing instead.
  4. I felt that this is the opportunity for me to stay committed to my husband and marriage. I married my husband for better or for worse, for when in health or sickness, for richer or poorer. I also married him for when he makes everything right or for when he doesn’t. I married him also for the times that he makes mistakes. There doesn’t need to be a divorce to break this promise. I can still break it in my heart, though still remaining married to him, by not staying connected in my heart to him, not being supportive and not sticking with him through this journey of life, even when he fails. In the end, he is far more important than money.

I think that the marriage vows should also contain a promise that goes something like, “for when my spouse does everything right or for when my spouse makes mistakes and fails”.

After this, I called my husband and told him that it just doesn’t matter that he forgot to apply, that I could have forgotten it too and that God can still provide for us in other ways. Of course, I wish my first reaction was different! I can’t take that back! But still, the whole turn out was absolutely amazing, totally a Holy Spirit work that reminds nothing of my usual attitude, which I hope I can soon refer to as “old and past.” It is exciting, it makes me feel thrilled and it brings tears to my eyes.

The way God changes me – for me, that is the greatest proof that He is alive and present!