Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
Deuteronomy 7: 9
As I promised last month, I’m going to be doing a series of posts this month regarding God’s faithfulness and how he’s worked in my life in miraculous ways. I can’t think of any better way to celebrate the season of Thanksgiving than to ponder God’s faithfulness and recall how much I have to be thankful for on this journey of life.
To start off the month, I’m going to share a series of events that happened in November/December of 1995. My husband started a new job out of state with a trucking company in early November. Direct deposit wasn’t available back then and paychecks were sent by mail. Since he was paid every other week, it would be more than a month before we received his first paycheck. I was a stay-at-home mom and we depended solely on my husband’s income.
We had very little money in savings and it was depleted in a few weeks. Since my mom’s death, I always hosted Thanksgiving dinner for my family each year. I was too embarrassed to admit we were broke, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell my dad and other family members that I couldn’t afford to host dinner that year.
I continued to pray God would provide a way, but it seemed hopeless as Thanksgiving day grew closer and closer. I figured a day or two before Thanksgiving I would have to fess up and tell the family what was happening, but God had other plans. My dad won a turkey at our local grocery store and called to see if I wanted to use it for the dinner. My aunt won a ham and offered to bring it. My cousin showed up with a big bag of fresh potatoes from her garden a few days prior to Thanksgiving. Another friend gave me a bag of yams from the garden. Without going into a ton of details, I can tell you God provided every single item for my Thanksgiving meal down to the canned cranberry sauce.
Shortly after Thanksgiving, my dryer broke and the transmission went out of our car. My cousin’s mother-in-law bought a new washer and dryer and wanted to know if anyone could use her old ones. I got a nice dryer for free. The local garage agreed to take payments for repairing our car, which they normally don’t do.
December was financially rough and Christmas was fast approaching. Our kids were still pretty young at that time, and I was wondering how I was going to tell them there would be no Christmas. Two days before Christmas, we still had no paycheck. I was heartbroken. On Christmas Eve day, the paycheck and an entire month of back pay showed up in the mail. There’s nothing as crazy as shopping on Christmas Eve at the last minute, but I’m so thankful God provided and my kids were able to wake up to find gifts under the tree Christmas morning. God is faithful!
Too often, I find it easier to focus on the difficult times, get consumed by the here and now, and forget all the times God showed up in miraculous ways when things seemed dismal and hopeless. Remembering God’s miracles is the perfect remedy for doubt and uncertainty when prayers are many and answers are few.
I pray my recollections of God’s faithfulness will encourage you to pray without ceasing, trust God in all circumstances, and remember your own stories of how God intervened in miraculous ways in your life.
