Preaching to the Chior?

We have so much to be thankful for this year! Great is the Lord’s faithfulness! To give you an update: Adam is now a permanent employee of the Forest Service. Today is his “first day.” I cannot express enough the following:

1. Kids—go to school. God will be faithful to reward your hard work. He WANTS you to be successful and he has such great plans for you in employment.
2. Love one another. Love is the only way that we have made our marriage work. Granted, all you need is NOT love, but patience and joy and trust and desire for a successful marriage. After God, Adam is my number one. Lucy will always be my BFF, but also my #2.
3. Be patient. Our life together started as man and wife in 2005. We were not rich, we had no money to our name, in fact, our debt was more than we made in a year. Our first year of marriage we made $10,000. That’s it! We kept plugging along though, trusting that God would provide. He gave us the means to get out of debt and gave us the endurance to stick with part time employment while finishing school.
4. Consider it all joy! In May we moved from a beautiful CLEAN 2 bedroom apartment in Eureka to a crappy, dirty, hell hole in Susanville. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t THAT bad, but I hated it and I wanted to move as soon as possible. I did complain more than my share, but I stuck with it and God has blessed us with the fact that we’ve never had to call the cops or make complaints about our neighbors. And now, we’re looking to buy a house! It would be nearly impossible for us to buy right now if we had moved again. Moving is so expensive.
5. Let go and let God. We really stressed this year about everything. Lucy’s health. Money. Adam’s school. Adam’s job. Where we were going to move. Ashley’s job. Money. Our living situation. Money. Did I mention we stressed about Money? Any way… why did we stress?

Matthew 6 says:
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I fail these simply rules time and time again (except for the “go to school” part. Been there, done that). But God is faithful when I am not!