So, I was praying night and day about all of this. Crying out to God – help us Lord!
I knew the mortgage payments were coming due at the end of the month. Last month we had a $25000 miracle and used much of it to service those mortgages. I think the primary mortgage on the Wilton ($1mm mortgage) and Cape house ($500k mortgage) totalled about $8000 in monthly payments. This did not include our home insurance, flood insurance and property taxes, which were another $40000 per year but I payed those annually having waived escrow for those bills (only those with the best credit / financial strength are allowed to do this). Then there were the two home equity lines. To service the interest only on those was maybe another $2000 per month. So, just to take care of all the mortgages was $10000 and we didn’t have anything.
As the month came to a close, my prayers increased. Literally begging Jesus to step in and help. As mentioned, I kept saying things (out of frustration) like “Don’t you care about me needing to pay these bills?” What kind of Christian witness is it if I can’t pay these bills.
Looking back, I think this was all by design to bring me to my knees in desperation asking God: Why? What is going on Lord?
Part of this was to understand the
Difference between Paying Bills and Needs being Met
You see, because of the lense of money, I always saw them being the same. When the scriptures say “I will supply all your needs” (Phillipians 4:19) I (and most Christians I know) assumed this to mean “pay the bills.” But what if our bills are not a description of our needs? For example, what if some of my bills were created through enslaving debt and interest. Is it better to ask God to “pay the mortgage” or instead to get us out of debt slavery and provide our housing? Or what about unnecessary insurance plans and premiums? One of the things I had to let go of because it wasn’t important vs. food, housing, fuel was life insurance. I had several term life policies where premiums were due every month. Even later, we couldn’t afford health insurance premiums when they tripled under the Obama administration’s new healthcare law. Instead of going on governmental assistance, we trusted God and paid cash or worked things out with hospitals or medical providers. Here’s what’s important
I can do all things through Him who strengthens me
Phillipians 4:13
It’s important to keep in mind there is “more than one way to skin a cat” as the saying goes. God can do things above anything we can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). We have to be open to God answering our prayers in a way we didn’t expect, nor sometimes the way we wanted. But God is good. All the time. We have to be flexible. We have to “think outside the box”. Not my will Lord, but yours be done (Luke 22:42).
OK so as the month was winding down I’m wrestling with all these things. Its down to the wire. Literally. I was saying, Lord if we don’t get something by today, there will be no more time to get the money on time to pay the banks. There was one day left to wire funds, the quickest payment available at the time.
So as the day was concluding, I went outside on the beach for a walk. I took my phone with me incase something came through last minute. This is it Lord. Final moments for something to happen.
I decided to walk out to the end of the jetty in front of our house. I sat on the last rock which was a bit precarious to get up on. Knowing my phone wasn’t waterproof, I knew I was taking a risk of wrecking my phone if I fell in the water.
So I’m watching the sun now go down. It’s getting ready to set. I hear a voice say “command the sun not set.” I was like – Lord is that you? That’s kind of a crazy notion for me to do. Although I did recall there was a story in the bible where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still (Joshua 10:12). So, to my embarrassment thinking it a bit foolish for me to presume saying such a thing, I did it anyway. As the sun was sitting right on the horizon, I said to the sun “don’t set.” I even took a picture of it, which you see above here. That is the actual picture from my Samsung i325 chicklets-key style phone (popular at the time like the Blackberry). In fact three pictures.
So here I am, the sun was starting to set, but now (to me anyway) it doesn’t seem to be going below the horizon as it always does. I’ve probably watched over a thousand sun-sets here (we lived here on Cape Cod for 2-3 months every summer with the family for over 20 years) and they always took the same amount of time. Just a few minutes. When there are more clouds around, the show lasts a bit longer. But this time really was different. I can’t explain it with human logic or reasoning other than to report to you the sun didn’t move for quite a while. Much longer than all the other times where it got sucked over the horizon into the afterglow and dusk.
All of the sudden my phone rings. No joke. I’m puzzled – who could this be? It was my Dad.
Gregg, your Mother and I have decided to send you a gift
He went on to say that they prayed about what to give us and it was $14000! Now my parents didn’t have much, but they decided to help. What they didn’t know what when the mortgages were due, how much they were, etc. They knew we were going through financial hardship, but not the details and timing of our needs. I had purposely been careful not to ask anyone for anything, starting with our parents. God was teaching us to pray and ask Him. Plus, my parents are not wealthy. They were on social security and worked part time. They were praying for us though.
I was shocked. Who knew? What just happened?
God had dramatically showed up with a miracle answering our prayers with $14000. How do you want my to get it to you? My Dad asked. I said, can you wire it? That way I can get it to the banks before the end of the month. Sure, I’ll go down to the bank tomorrow and arrange for it. What a mighty God we serve!
My heavenly father had corresponded with my earthly father. He asked him to help us. Amazing!