Blessings received – God provided financially when we needed it

I wanted to start a new “series” about Blessings – both received & given. The purpose for this is not to brag or boast, but rather to remember the blessings that God has given us. Meaningful times that we really want our children to remember and tell their children about. And we want to encourage our children to find opportunities to bless others. (Although it would be nice, these will not be in any chronological order) 🙂

Although Grant was injured in Iraq in 2005, he came home, had surgery, went through 2 years of physical therapy & was able to go back to work at UPS when he was medically retired from the military in 2007. He enjoyed working there, but in 2013 his Doctor told him he could not work anymore and Grant was forced to retire permanently.

It took a long 2 1/2 years fighting for SSDI (disability benefits). During this time, we saw God financially provide for us in many, many ways. Certainly, we did not doubt the timing at all & gave God the credit. It gives me goosebumps every time I think about how God just provided right when we needed it. A few of those ways:

• Toilet paper. Yes, toilet paper. We have a tendency to like to stock up on things when shopping, so that we don’t run out. For “some reason” (I say that a little facetiously as I know full well that this was one of God’s ways of providing for us.), about the year before Grant retired, I would just buy extra toilet paper every time I went shopping. We had a corner of our master bathroom that the t.p. stacked well in, and our goal was to have a 6 month supply. Well, I didn’t buy any toilet paper for 18 months!! That TP lasting felt like Elijah’s widow from the Bible who didn’t run out of oil.
• In the first few months after Grant’s retiring, as we were trying to “retrench” (movie quote-comment below!) and figure out how we were going to pay our property taxes (which were 1/4 of our income at that time!), we received a random dividend-type check in the mail for several hundred dollars! It was from an energy company we had paid utilities to for 9 years at our first house. We had moved 4 years previously!! How bizarre?!
• Also within that retrenching period, we received a visit from some old friends we had not seen in close to a decade! Grant had worked with this friend for a couple months in 2003. We had just had our second baby and I was quitting work to stay home with the kids. This friend showed up now, and gave Grant a check for $1000! He had not been able to pay Grant much and wanted to make it right. They had no idea our circumstances and how desperately we needed that money right then!!
• The next year, 2014, we got a scary letter from the IRS saying that they had reviewed our taxes and we owed something like $1500 (which we of course did not have). Thankfully, my wonderful Aunt Jan is a tax accountant and offered to look the taxes over & see if there was anything we could do. She was amazing and discovered that I had made a mistake on our taxes – I had claimed our rental $ under self-employment income instead of the appropriate rental income. We were able to file an amendment and not only did we not owe that $1500, we ended up getting an additional amount back (I don’t remember the exact amount, but it was over $1000)!!! 

We definitely feel BLESSED!