A few weeks ago I found myself visiting the '2pm club' at the local Baptist church. Members of this club are well beyond retirement age and they enjoy a speaker, a cuppa and a cake. I was asked to speak about our house and human trafficking. Not quite knowing how to pitch my talk, I explained what we are doing and why it is so important. I was pleased to have engaged them (only one person fell asleep). During the question time at the end, one lady spoke up and told me she had been thinking of a story in the Old Testament that she thought was relevant for us.
Elijah, one of the prophets of Israel and seemingly an all round nutcase, visited a very poor widow. He asked her for something to eat.
"I haven't got anything left," she replied. "I'm just making one more meal for myself and my son before we starve."
"Give me what you have," Elijah promised, "and you will never run out again."
And guess what? She gave Elijah her very last meal. This hungry widow who felt death by starvation tapping her on the shoulder. She just gave.
And she never ran out. The flour and the jar of oil always had more in them.
At the time I was feeling emotionally dry. I felt like I had nothing left to give. I thought it an encouragement to keep going. Little did I know what was really meant by it...
The very next day, looking at our finances, Jared explained to me that we wouldn't be able to give our usual monthly amount because by doing so we would have nothing left two weeks into the month. Nothing to live on to feed our constantly hungry boys or to pay the bills. We had also paid out a huge amount of money to fix the many leaks in the house over the last few months. We were at the very end in every possible way. I remembered the story of the widow and, after thinking and praying it through, we decided to give anyway and trust God to provide for us to scrape through to the end of the month.
And for two weeks the anxiety built. I tried not to panic. Each bill we paid brought us closer to zero. So, we told our boys and we stood together in the kitchen, reminding God of his promises to provide for us. I think at that point the boys had more faith than me.
Two days later, we had a deposit in our bank account of £50.
Three days later, we had a deposit in our bank account of £250.
Six days later, we came downstairs in the morning to find an envelope filled with £300 on our doormat.
Ten days later, we had a payment for £368.
Eleven days later, we had a knock at the door at breakfast and someone handing us £250 and then a deposit of £450 in our bank account later that day.
This is more than scraping through!
Every single time, we have thanked our faithful God and asked him to bless those who have given to us. He has given back to us more than six times the amount we gave at the beginning of the month. It has truly been an awesome rollercoaster of trust. Not only has he provided for us, but he is depositing enormous faith in the hearts of my boys. Their foundations will not be shaken for they have seen with their very own eyes the real answers to their prayers.
Faith exists in the realms of the impossible and we are certainly living in those realms. There is nothing in what we are doing with our home that we can do by relying on our own strength or abilities. It is impossible but we choose to live this way because we serve a God for whom nothing is impossible. And it's a pretty exciting way to live too!
The '2pm club' gave me far more than I gave to them on that chilly Wednesday afternoon a few weeks ago. And I am more grateful than the words my fingers can type.
And our story continues....
