God Provides
I was 29 years old in 1997 and had just finalized my divorce. When adding up my bills I made $200.00 less than what I needed just to scrape by, not counting gas for my car or groceries or extras of any kind.
During that season I thought a lot about people who don’t have family to lean on or anyone to turn to in times of real need. I also thought a lot about what people do who do not have a relationship with God. Who do you turn to when things seem hopeless?
I can tell you, I turn to God when everything feels hopeless and I feel helpless. I pray..a lot. This was one of those seasons of life that still stands out to me as a time when God showed up and made it obvious that God was at work answering my prayers.
I was working at 911, and desperately trying to see the light at the end of what I thought was a dark tunnel.
At 911 I was constantly surrounded by people who didn’t fit in my world; people who were carnal, selfish, worldly and radically oblivious to God. I was working sixteen and twenty four hours shifts regularly. I was stressed all the time and had just started going to a new church but only on Wednesday nights because I worked on Sundays. The people at that church began to pray for me. It was unheard of for someone who was not a supervisor to be granted days off on the weekend but after three weeks of those church people praying for me the Chief of Police called me personally and asked if I might be willing to agree to split days off of Sunday and Wednesday! Because I knew people had been praying for me to be off on Sundays, there was no question I would accept.
After being given Sundays off, I attended church every week and began to grow my faith above what I had been taught as a child. Over the next few months my life came into better balance, I felt emotionally stronger and more resiliant. Even though I now had two actual days off every week I somehow managed even more overtime which kept my bills at bay.
Then, a lady at church asked if I thought it might be time to pray for a better job and she encircled me with a few others and began to pray. This went on for a few weeks until a friend from my past randomly called and asked if I might be interested in a new job. Again, the ladies at church had been praying so I followed their lead and applied at a temp agency for a position at Jacobs Engineering. Computers were not as common as they are now, and it helped that I already had a lot of computer skills.
At 911, I was able to make up the difference in how much money I needed every month and how much I made with all the overtime available to me. This new job would not pay enough to justify making the switch, but the benefits were significantly better. I had pretty much decided to turn down the offer when something weird and unexpected happened. The mayor of Galveston had been removed from his position overnight due to some corrupt decisions and the new interim city mayor of Galveston showed up on our shift and apologized that he would now be cutting everyones pay rate and assigning street officers to come in and make up some of the overtime so that dispatchers would no longer be working overtime hours.
I turned in my notice at 911 and accepted the position at Jacobs Engineering. That extra $200.00 to $400.00 in overtime I was losing haunted me, mocked me and made me worry but it did not make me stop praying. I told the ladies at the church and they adjusted their prayers.
I got my first paycheck and freaked out. I knew I was never going to make ends meet like this. I stopped using the air conditioner at my house to get the light bill down and several other not good enough maneuvers to save money.
As I sat in my little house feeling defeated, one of the ladies from church called to ask how I was doing. As I talked to her on the phone, I opened the mail and found a check from my insurance company for almost $300.00 for overpayment from the previous years. I told the lady from church and she pointed out that this is how God works. God always works things out in ways we couldn’t not have dreamed up or made up.
In the second month of working at Jacobs Engineering one of my co-workers told me about a site online where you could go and type in your name and see if there was “found money” in your name and I was shocked that a house I had bought when I was just 20 years old had money from closing costs that was never dispersed to me. It arrived in my mail within two weeks, just in time to pay the rest of that months bills.
In the third month I received my W-2s from the police department and discovered I would be getting a huge income tax return. I not only made my bills but was able to get two new tires for my car and repair a small issue with the plumbing at my house.
In the fourth month my ex randomly showed up with a check for his half of our credit card debt that he had left me with. He apologized for his role in our demise and I apologized for the part I played as well. We made peace with our past. It was a heavy weight off my shoulders in more ways than one. Even now, 27 years later we are at peace with each other.
In the fifth month I got a letter from a life insurance company from my job at University of Texas Health Science Center saying that they were restructuring and I had the option to cancel my coverage for a cash out option. Normally, I would have kept it, but it was a strangely worded policy that I hadn’t made payments for anyway, so I opted to cash out and once again, even though my job didn’t earn enough, God made a way to keep me going.
In the sixth month, my boss at Jacobs Engineering came into my office and sat down opposite of me and began listing every task I had been assigned since he brought me in as a temp. I was convinced he was leading up to telling me the temporary position was ending and he didn’t need me anymore, so imagine my surprise when he asked if I would be interested in hiring on direct at a significant pay raise and a small signing bonus.
For six months, I prayed and for six months God just kept reminding me that He was at work behind the scenes of my life.
I think about that season of my life every time I find myself beginning to worry. It is just one example of how God has carried me through life, growing my faith and trust in Him.
Pics above are of my house I lived in at the time of this story and of my 30th birthday surprise the day after my boss invited me to be a part of the official team at Jacobs Engineering.