Why?

Today, I felt strongly led to drive to my bank and talk to a bank officer about some issues I am having with my checking account. They are my own fault...part of my "paying the piper" issue and pulling myself out of the mess I have made by being careless. I really did not want to go. It was very far out of my way, because I use a credit union. I didn't think there was anything anyone could do. But the compulsion feeling stayed with me and stuck like a knot in my gut. So, I spent my morning at work getting things accomplished; paperwork, paperwork, paperwork so that I could take my lunch hour to go to the credit union and then finish the afternoon with in the field appointments.

I wrote out my ideas about what I wanted to discuss. The manager was very friendly, very nice and did not demean me in any way. This has been my experience with every person I have ever worked with at the credit union and one of the top reasons I will stay with them. But there was nothing he could really do. He pulled my credit, with my permission and went over a few things with me on my credit report and showed me how my score is actually improving and a few more car payments under my belt will increase my score even more. However, today, there was nothing to do to help my present situation.

I left with tears stinging my eyes. Why, Lord, did you send me over here then? I don't understand. It seemed like such a waste of time.

However, there were a few things that John said to me that stuck with me and I do believe that this is what the Lord wanted to tell me today. He told me that I am heading in a good direction and I am close to pulling myself out of my hole. He said that by the end of the year, things will turn around. He also told me that there are many good things happening with my credit, so my overall financial picture is really very promising.

OK. I should have had my expectations to be "expect the worst, hope for the best" but I hung onto the "hope for the best part" and did not prepare myself for the "expect the worst" part. I had a lot of drive-time today, which meant I had a lot of time to talk out loud to the Lord and sort it out. The tears dried up quickly when I realized that the Lord was giving me a glimpse of the "Big Picture" and I was feeling stuck in the "little picture". The big picture is that the decisions I make today will affect my tomorrow. However, the Bible says I am not to worry about tomorrow, because today has enough trouble of it's own.

Don't I know it.

I have one more week til payday. My Mom is going to pay me "in gas" to pick-up my Dad in Lindstrom tomorrow. This will get me through the rest of the week. My checkbook can sit idle.

I was also feeling sad, and a bit sorry for myself, because I had some silver coins that I was going to take in and get appraised. One of the things I have been reading in the books by Mary Hunt, and some other places, is that when your life is cluttered, get rid of things that do not bring joy and beauty or function to your life. These coins were a gift from my ex-fiance' and every time I looked at them in my jewelry box, I felt a little prick in my heart. Then I learned from some phone calls that I made, that they were worth more than their face value so I figured if I sold them to a coin dealer, I would get some cash to help get me through the next week.

The coins have disappeared. I thought that one of my children took them from my purse, even though I put them in a lesser known pocket, in an envelope, to minimize the chance of their discovery. I told them last night that they were missing and I needed them returned. BB insisted he knew nothing about them. I have a hard time believing him and sometimes he protests loudly and then later on will confess. I did not let the boys play on the computer and this made BB really mad. It became a huge power struggle with him. But I realized that with the pressure I had applied to him, if he knew anything about the coins, he would have given them up because he would not have withstood losing his computer time. I continued to search. I wracked my brain for places where I may have lost them, should my purse have dumped out. But they are gone. I checked my desk drawers at work.

My gut is telling me that I put them in my desk drawer at work and they were stolen. There has been a lot of thievery going on. I should have known better. I could have locked them up in my med cabinet.

So, with the urging to go to the bank and then the loss of these coins that I figured was close to $50 weighing on me, I felt like I had just hit the lowest point. I had also searched high and low for a savings bond but I can't find that either. It was so frustrating. I came back to the question, "Why?"

Why have these things gone missing now, at this point, when I need them so much? Why did I drive across town to the credit union to gain nothing but a pat on the back and a "hang in there"?

TRUST.

I have nothing to put my trust in but the Lord. It has all been stripped away. This is my lesson. I am to lean in and rely on the Lord. I have my work to do. I have to sort out my debts and build my plan for repaying them. I have to tighten my belt and live very frugally, probably for the rest of the summer and into October, is my best estimate. I have to apologize to some people whom I have hurt and I have to rebuild trust with them. I have nobody to rely on. No one to rescue me but the Lord. No human being is going to come to my aid right now because I believe the Lord is holding them back in order to teach me a lesson in TRUST.

Tonight, I am sitting here at my computer realizing that I have food in my cupboards, enough to get us through. I have a quarter of a tank of gas in my tank which will get me to Lindstrom. My Mom has said she will pay me in gas but I don't know what that means at this point, so all I can do is trust and lean on the Lord.

As painful as it is and as miserable as things feel at times, I realize that the Lord loves me very much. If He didn't, He wouldn't bother to teach me these lessons. He could see to it that someone stepped in to bail me out but if that happened, I would not be learning and I would not be trusting. He really loves me. And with Him, nothing is impossible. I will survive.