During the weeks after my husband, Scott, was in the hospital, in addition to overwhelming and new lifestyle and medical decisions, I started having to make significant financial decisions for our family’s future.
When we left the hospital in Dallas, would we go
back to our home in Boerne? We had just signed our second one-year lease. It
did not seem practical that his powerchair living would work in that space, and
I also did not know what type of support system we would have if we stayed
there instead of moving closer to Scott’s family living in the DFW area.
What
would I do with our extra vehicle? Scott clearly was not able to drive, and it
did not seem like he would be driving anytime soon.
How were we going to pay our present bills? I
was having to return a few thousand dollar deposits he had received in advance
to do his contract work. Though it stirred moments of financial fear, I knew it
was the right thing to do. Scott was not going to be able to complete his part
of the contract, to design and deliver marching band drill design shows on
time; the “show had to go on” for these programs and schools.
How were we going to pay our future bills? We
had our life insurance policies, but we had recently canceled his disability
insurance policy thinking the chances of him becoming disabled were so slim and
it was more important for us to use those monies to save for our dream to buy
our next house in cash. I remember us saying that we believed the church, the
body of Christ, would step in to help if something happened.
With no end to his injuries in sight, I was
starting to have the realization that our primary income earner was no longer
making income, and that our back up plan (me), was not physically able to
manage taking care of our three small children, his medical and physical needs,
and try to earn enough income from my not yet profitable business that was
already in motion.
Ev-er-ything felt shattered and out of my
control. I literally was forced to live in the present moments of what I
believed to be the best decisions for only those moments; there were no
luxuries of long-term planning anymore.
And so, one by one, I did my best to try to make
these monumental decisions in the small moments of our chaotic days. And one
outcome at a time, I started to see God’s Word as living and working in our
everyday lives; not just stories to know and believe; but Words to trust and
live by.
For us, it was becoming dependable,
and
with that dependability,
came more predictability;
and in that
predictability,
came more
stability.
* * *
One decision that needed to be made was to sell
one of our vehicles. An opportunity came up to sell our Honda Odyssey van.
I looked up the van’s value and priced it to
sell for a fair price of $2200.00. This cash would have provided a sense of
comfort of us moving in the right financial direction for me. I had just seen
our recently built-up savings account get completely wiped out.
When my friend came back to me and told me the
mother could not afford the van, but that the benevolent group would purchase our
van for her, I asked questions.
It angered my spirit when I found out that the
organization was going to purchase our van and then allow her to make payments,
with interest, to own it herself! I did not want someone else to go into debt
on our behalf to gain what we needed.
So, I told them I needed to confirm it with
Scott, but that we would just prefer to give her the van for free.
As soon as I asked Scott, while he was lying
flat in his hospital bed, and with labored breathing, he did not hesitate. When
I told him about the group wanting to loan this struggling mother the money, he
said, “Why not just give the van to her?” We were in agreement.
And so, we gave our van away.
Perhaps, because, we had also been impacted by
Robert Morris’ book, “The Blessed Life”, it made this decision a no-brainer. It
was that book that had prompted me, about a year prior to Scott’s accident, to
exercise my faith for God to give us a bigger vehicle so we could add a third
carseat. Someone ended up giving us their Ford Explorer before our son was
born!
“The Blessed Life” tells a story of numerous
times he gives away and then receives vehicles. I had seen the vision of
Kingdom sowing and reaping principles applied to vehicles, and so it may have
played a role somehow in my ability to complete our vehicle exchange cycle so
effortlessly. In addition, over the
previous two years, we had also already seen the provision of God’s faithfulness
in finances through the workings of our Benevolence account – even though it
was still in the two- or three-digit range.
Sometime later, most likely weeks, I received a
call from my friend.
“Rachelle. There is another organization here in town, a group of men. They heard what you guys did, giving that van to that mother. They were so touched by your generosity in the midst of your own crisis, they are sending you a $5000 donation!”
I believe wholeheartedly when Jesus said, in
Luke 6:38,
“Give, and it shall be given to you;
good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put
into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be
measured back to you”,
He meant it. ♥
Rachelle Suzanne | www.SOCKS.team
Servant’s of Christ’s Kingdom Serving
(Written for 40Dandelions)
