About a year ago, we got slammed with about three months of medical bills. Our kids both had dental work done. Madison needed an extensive amount, and it cost us a pretty penny. During this time, Malachi had a few unplanned doctor’s appointments and a trip to the emergency room for what ended up being fluid in his hip-joint. Because of all this, we were barely keeping afloat. I was working really hard to save us money where I could, but we had more needs than money to cover them.

We were praying specifically for $300 dollars to be able to buy curriculum for homeschooling for the fall. A representative from the company we were going to order from was going to be in our area for two days. If you ordered from him, you could get free shipping and 25% off of your entire order. So we were really praying for $300.

We got a call from my mother-in-law. She said that a man from her church had given her a card to pass on to us. He had given money to our family in the past, so we were so excited to hear this. We decided we would drive to her house (about 45 minutes away) after nap time and pick up the card. When we got there, Matt opened the card and said, “Look!” I looked inside the card and saw a check. When I looked at it, it said three hundred dollars! My heart soared, but only for a second. When I looked at the check the second time, I realized it was addressed to our church, not to us. I pointed that out to my husband, and he just looked kinda sick. I was so discouraged! It was the exact amount we needed, and the card was written to us, but it was a gift for our church– not us. Feeling deflated, we didn’t stay long but beat a hasty retreat out of my in-law’s home. It was a quiet ride home. I was so frustrated! Why would God tease us like that?

I didn’t have the answers. I didn’t know if it was a test from God or something from Satan to discourage us. On the way home, Matt said, “God gives us just what we need for today.” I had to choose to let it go and trust God had a better plan. Was that easy? No; I asked God to help me trust Him and remember my life verse– Psalm 18:30 “As for God, his way is perfect…”  I had to trust that God had a better plan and rest in that.

A few weeks later, I got a call from a good friend of mine. She told me that she had ordered some curriculum for her daughter for school and didn’t like it and wanted to know if I wanted it. It just happened to be the same curriculum we were going to buy from the rep but didn’t have the money for. I’m so glad we just waited and trusted God! God’s plans are always so much better than my own!

A few years ago, we were sitting in line at a red light when somebody slammed into the back of our van. The other car hit us so hard that even though we were sitting still, the momentum pushed our van into the car in front of us and back again into the original car that had hit us. So by the time we stopped moving, we had been hit twice in the back of the van and once in the front. The back windshield had shattered, the van was totaled, our children were screaming; it was a mess.

Praise the Lord; everybody was fine, just shaken up. It was quite a traumatic experience for Matt and I and our two small children. Fast-forward one year later to almost the day, we were rear-ended again on the same road!! It was less than a mile from the location of the first accident. Once again, we were sitting in line at a red light talking when a cargo van slammed into us from behind. The impact pushed our van into the middle of a busy intersection. The back windshield shattered, the van was totaled, our now three children were screaming. Same exact story. I remember right after the impact, I turned quickly to check on the kids and said, “What the …?! ” I caught myself right before I put an expletive in there. I was so peeved that it had happened again!  The first thing that came to mind was not something good. I am always ashamed when I remember that story. In the heat of the moment, I got so worked up that I didn’t control what was coming out of my mouth.

Because of that story, I am always amazed and impressed with Job’s response to his trial, which far surpasses mine. I was reading in Job chapter one this morning. It is a very familiar story for most people. Job was the greatest man in the East in his day. He was incredibly wealthy, had ten children, and was very well-known. Yet in one day, he lost everything except for his wife. One by one, messengers come to tell Job of all that he had lost. As I come to the end of the chapter and feel the weight of Job’s grief and everything that he has lost, I find myself almost holding my breath. What is Job going to do? How is he going to respond? I wouldn’t be able to survive all this. What is his response?

Job 1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

I am always stunned when I read these words, no matter how many times I have read this account. How in the world could Job respond this way? In the worst moments of his life, his automatic response is to praise God’s name. I don’t know how anybody could do this. My thought is that Job was so used to praising God for all he had and seeing everything he had as a gift from God, that when the unthinkable happened, his automatic response was to praise the Lord. It doesn’t mean he didn’t grieve. The next several chapters record his grieving and hurting process. He just made it a practice to thank God for everything He had.

I am so challenged by Job’s response. The words that rush to my lips when something bad happens are not, “blessed be the name of the Lord.”  I have had nothing in my life as traumatic as Job’s story. His story challenges me to be so used to thanking God and seeing everything in my life as God sees it. Maybe one day, my automatic response could be like Job’s.

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.