Prayer works.

[Graej]

I just wanted to drop by and give a praise report. I have been worrying (a sin I know, but I think on things a bit much sometimes) about several key things that we are facing right now. By we I mean lovlyn, me, our two sons, and four cats. Yes, even the cats have been helping me worry, but it often comes out as just MEOW. Which, strangely enough, is the same way they respond to most other situations.

Anyways, I have been concerned lately because the list of broken things, projects, and needs have been growing lately and frankly we haven't been able to keep up with them. Some time ago we realized that the wood at the base of our kitchen windows was rotting due to water damage. the transmission in our jeep went out.. TWICE. This jeep is the one my wife uses to take the kids around and such. My saturn, which I've driven for 14 years was starting to give out. I had been trying to get us all back into this wonderful church right down the road. My mom and my father both hurt their arms (mom and dad have been separated since I was three) and both had to have surgery. We've been trying to find homes for our four cats because both lovlyn and our oldest are now allergic to them, and lovlyn has asthma. My job responsibilities have quadrupled. I've been so mentally exhausted I have barely enough energy to play with the kids in the evening. Lovlyn has been repeatedly getting sick. partially due to our oldest being in pre-school (I think) for the last year and working on his immune system by bringing home colds. We were in a bad contract with our current alarm company and broke our alarm system while doing the repairs mentioned above.

Now, let us see how God has answered the prayers we and our friends/family have been sending up.

1) We managed to buy replacement windows and my dad helped me re-frame the side of the house. The new windows are now in place, but we have to finish the inside and do some more repairs outside. But the old stuff is ripped out and the new windows are in.

2) My step father ( a master tech mechanic) is fixing our jeep transmission now. We believe the cost of fixing itwill be around 200 bucks. My parents are letting us borrow their jeep in the mean time.

3) My saturn.. we'll save that til last..

4) We've now made it to two of the three discovery classes to learn more about the church we want to join. The feeling of making it to church (we're not morning people) is wonderful and I finally feel like I'm heading back in the right direction.

5) Both my mom and my dad went through their surgeries and are doing very well.

6) Still working on the cat situation but I feel like I have a renewed strength in the situation. (I've been praying more)

7) Although the job situation is a bit rough, I have been praying for Wisdom and Discernment and God has been providing it.

8 ) Through prayer, and actually giving up my right to my problems, I feel like I am starting to understand more of how good God is. day by day. I listen to a lot of Christian radio in the morning and get to hear very good messages that strengthen and encourage me. They also convict and remind me the road ahead.

9) I am trying to let go of the worry and set aside some more time with my kids. I'm a work in progress Dad I suppose.

10) Although Lovlyn is still coming down sick even as I type this, I am trying to keep turning to God and praying about all this. I know he uses these things for the good of those that love him. We're heading into winter and she typically stays sick a lot in the fall and winter, but I am praying that we'll beat it this year.

For the last part of this, and point 3 about my car, I just want to walk through the last few weeks.

I have been worried a lot about all the things we need to be taking care of but have been trying to turn more to praying and less to toiling over it in my mind. We messed up our houses alarm system while re-framing the windows and had spoken with our current alarm provider about how they could help us out. Well, they felt that we should sign us back up for another required 3 years and then they'd help us a bit. Note, I have been trying to get us out of contracts like this. Long term contracts are not good to have in this economy. The problem is that I have already been with them almost 6 years and didn't want to keep them past the first 3 years. They tricked us with the contract and basically auto-renewed it for another 3 years. The plan was to get away from them but we need an alarm and money was an issue.

At the same time, it seemed like my saturn was going to give out on me and I drive an hour and a half every day back and forth to work. I have to have a reliable car. I didn't want to buy another car because we were planning on being out of debt by next year. We would just have the house left and that is it, aside from some medical bills.

We were also noticing that our time warner cable internet bill was creeping up and needed options. So here is how it all went down. We found out that the ADT system we have could be repaired by ADT and that we could go back to them for 99 dollars (with a 60 dollar rebate coming back to us afterwards), but we needed a LAN line. We checked into the LAN line a few years ago and it was like 175 bucks to sign up and 40 bucks a month to have it. We're on a budget so we couldn't do it back then. We opted to have them use a cell phone to run the alarm system.

So we contacted centurylink and found out that there would be no deposit. Now we have dsl and a lan line for roughly the same price as the old cable internet. Our current alarm company is going to let us out of our contract early, WITHOUT ANY FEES. Praise the Lord! The ADT alarm company will be coming out around the first of the month to put in the new system, which will have an updated speaker/monitor so they can come talk to us instantly when the alarm goes off. This is much better because now they have to call one of our cell phones and it takes longer than I'd like to make sure everyone is safe.

Lastly, I prayed to God about my car and said that I didn't want to get a loan for a new car. I looked all over for used cars and most of the lots has bad reputations and the prices were not great. I went with my step dad to the place he buys his cars and eventually agreed to see about getting a loan for a new car. I have been in pay off mode for years now and haven't really looked at my credit much as I didn't really want any more loans, etc. So I wasn't sure that I would even be able to get a loan for a car, hence me pricing used ones. I asked God to step in and that if this was a mistake to just let them come back and say no.

They didn't do that... They were able to get me the loan with a good interest rate and payments where I wanted them. I know that it will be years to pay it off, but a car can be repo'd but a non auto loan just sits there as they try to get the money out of you. Besides, we'll have our jeep payed off in a few months, so the payement will just take the place of it.

So now I have a reliable new car that is covered (warranty wise) for the full life of the loan. It's amazing, After 14 years of driving the same car, and the last 7 years with it being worse for wear, I am now driving a new 2013 chevy spark and it feels good to have that burden (when is my car going to break down) off my mind. My old saturn was pretty messed up on the interior due to water damage via a leak in the sunroof. It was starting to wear out and had no air conditioning. Not to mention being very loud.

I know some of the things I mentioned above are not resolved, but God is providing for us and carrying us through these times. I can't help but feel that I've been down in the dumps so long. Now it feels like he's lifting my head up by the chin and telling me everything is going to be alright.

All of this may not sound like a lot, but it's all been weighing heavily on my shoulders for the last year or more. I felt like I was about to crack in half or go crazy. I now feel renewed and even though we're not where we should be, we're turning back to God. He takes care of his own. God is so good.

God bless you all and I hope that this will encourage someone. A child of God is never alone and nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Sorry for how long this post is, but it feels like God has been doing so much that it's hard to put it into words sometimes.

, Graej

[ChickenSoup]

Great to hear, man.

[ccgr]

WoW! It's great that some of your prayers have been answered. Keep praying! I'm doing a Bible study on Nehemiah and he prayed for fourth months before talking to the king.

[Chozon1]

Cool. ^_^