Dear MOB Society,
I’ve been witness to amazing blessings and answers to prayers, so why, when we struggle, is it so hard to let go and let God take the reigns – especially when it comes to money?
I feel like such a failure. Can you help?
Over four years ago my husband and I found ourselves dedicating our new baby to the Lord. During the service that followed, our pastor spoke about prayer and how anything is possible. He spoke from 1 Samuel—how Hannah begged God for a child—and while I sat there, I kept thinking “answers to prayer do happen.”
In reality, I was struggling to listen to the service that day because I was preoccupied with all the things running on empty in my life. But when the pastor reached the point in the story where Hannah was blessed with a open womb, I started praying.
I prayed that God would help us to make it until Thursday, until my husband’s payday. That somehow we would have gas for the van so the boys could go to preschool. That we’d have food in the cupboards and on our table. That we’d have enough hope to make it one more week – not even a full week, just four more days.
I honestly don’t even remember if I thanked him for the blessings I had.
After the service we were invited to my mother’s house for dinner. Marty and I were thankful for a free meal but now worried about the limited amount of gas in the minivan. Why was everything so against us right now? As we headed to her house we stopped at a gas station to put a couple of dollars worth of gas into the tank. Suddenly, my mother’s car appeared and she handed her credit card to my husband and told him to fill it up.
How was this possible? She had left the church before us. How could she be behind us?
With a shocked and almost teary-eyed expression my husband got back into the van. My husband was not a praying man. He never really believed in it like I did. Yet, this night, this important night, he had prayed. Not only had he prayed, but he had prayed almost the exact words that I did – at the exact time. As our pastor taught about Hannah’s simple prayer, we both prayed these words:
“OK, God, if you can bless Hannah with a baby, bless us with food and gas.”
With tears running down my face we headed off to my mother’s house. I was in shock. My husband had prayed. My mom came out of nowhere and filled up our car. I wasn’t directly responsible for either one, and I realized God had been working on us for a while. We needed to get to rock bottom.
We needed to be in a place where prayer was our only option…to see that God is there and does answer prayer.
So this year I’m taking up a new motto: Let Go. Let God Happen. Meaning that with everything I do I want to honor Him. Sure I may have felt like a failure with our finances, but each time I was at the bottom, He was there, ready for me to call out to Him so He could lift me up. And in the process, help me to grow.
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Deuteronomy 31:6
~Alaina Frederick is a mom to four boys. She is also the founder of Amazingly Broken and working on her first book.
This post is part of our first series of 2014, Hope for the Messiness of Motherhood. Find all of the posts in this series here.
