Greater than the Lillies of the Field!

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds." James 1:2

Even though I can always look back and see the blessings that have come out of trials, I have to admit that this scripture is difficult for me to swallow in the middle of a storm. It has become easier with every storm to see God's hand in the middle of it; however, I still struggle many times with my faith.

This year has been especially trying for us medically and financially. Can you really have one without the other? It began in the summer of 2010 when my husband had to have emergency hernia surgery. He was out of work for six weeks and this was during a time period when we were desperately trying to put our personal lives back together and had already spent thousands of dollars trying to save our marriage.

We managed to make it through that storm and recover somewhat financially from that when almost a year to the date later, his eyeball fell apart and required two emergency surgeries. Having used all of his PTO time vacationing and taking our daughter to college, we struggled again for a time period.

Then, our youngest daughter had an initial $565 consultation with an oral surgeon to discuss her future. We were told that she must have surgery ASAP to remove some baby teeth that had never erupted and were causing major damage to her jaw line. We knew we couldn't put it off because her orthodontic work couldn't proceed until this was accomplished. Being a middle schooler, we felt, for social reasons, we must begin this process soon.

I'll take a minute here to tell you that up to this point, I had handled all of the unexpected expenses with extreme calmness. I wrote that $565 consultation check as if I wrote $565 checks every day. I held my head high and acted as if this action caused absolutely no stress to my life at all, and speaking honestly, to this point I had learned my lesson about God taking care of me even better than He takes care of the lilies of the field. I had seen His hand in too many of life's difficulties not to believe that.

They set up the date for the extraction, and they informed us to come prepared to pay $1,090 on the day of the surgery. Upon arrival for the surgery, I whipped out my checkbook ready to write a check for $1,030 when the Barbie-doll receptionist proudly announced, "That will be $1,785." Now, an additional $755 might not seem like a huge amount to you, but for us at this time, she might as well have said $1,000,000. The calm exterior gave in to the frightened interior, and I just began sobbing uncontrollably. My mask fell off, and the real me surfaced. Our struggles just started pouring out of my mouth for all to see and hear.

Long story short, the surgeon told the receptionist to adjust our bill $755. Once again I am humbled at a mighty God who sees my needs before I even see them and already has a plan to meet those needs.

Blessings,
Penny