No Other Way

I’ve been doing some thinking ever since last Sunday. We visited church at the place where we were married last Sunday. In the services, they sang ‘Showers of Blessings”. I don’t like that song because the words say, in part, “Mercy drops (of blessings) around us are falling; but for the showers we plead.”
I think that’s asking a bit much. Here we are in the most prosperous nation on earth and most of us have a roof over our heads and something to eat and wear and much in abundance more, and we sing a song that asks for even more blessings. That takes some nerve.
Anyway, all of that got me to thinking about where we were just a short time ago and where we are now. In November of 2007, we were homeless and were staying in my brother’s bedroom in their house. We had no job, but did have unemployment. We had health insurance courtesy of our church paying the premium and had food and clothing. We weren’t in as bad of shape as many, but for us we were in kind of a bad spot. We lost our jobs at the same time and on no notice. We felt somewhat betrayed by what happened and were left to wonder just what was going on.
So what did we ask God for during that time? Well, let’s see. The list was rather short (at least mine was). I asked for emotional healing from the job loss, work that I could do, a place of our own to live, and beyond that wished for jobs for us that were good enough that we could finally start putting some serious money aside for retirement. Better to start late than not at all, I guess.
In November of 2007, all of that seemed like a pipe dream. Let’s look now and see where we are and what happened. The healing has begun and is continuing. We are much farther along with that than we thought we would be. We both have work that we like to do. We are being paid good salaries and have health and dental insurance, a retirement program, etc. We have a beautiful place to live that we never would have thought we could have found, let alone afforded. And we are indeed putting aside serious money for retirement…in fact, we are stashing cash away monthly that is within a few dollars of what I had thought we would need to do but never would have dreamed that we COULD have done. In addition we got rid of a rather large debt, are putting resources away in good real estate in addition to the cash savings, and are not worrying about paying bills or cash flow.
On top of that we have apparently good health for our ages and have many of the amenities of life…good friends and family, and the “things” that make life easier.
So what happened here? Did all of this just fall into place by happenstance or by our work and tenacity? Some would say yes. And we did have to see the ad in the newspaper, follow up on the ad, submit a resume, etc. And we did have to sign mortgage papers and work hard over the past many years for a good credit rating that enabled us to buy a place. But if you only look at that, you’re missing something.
We are being blessed with “abundantly more” than we asked some 18 months ago. If we’d be doing this on our own, we wouldn’t be where we are and have what we have. We would have been satisfied long ago.
So this isn’t our doing, and it isn’t the doing of coincidence. This is a deliberate act, I believe, on the part of Someone greater than we in response to the cries of two of His children. I can see it no other way.