Sacrifice Part 1: The Story Behind the Sacrifice

As I’ve said many times before, we have been truly humbled and blown away by so many people’s generosity. I have tried my best to chronicle everything God has been doing on this journey because as I’ve said before, I want our boys to understand how God took care of us by using so many people in different ways to carry us when we needed it most. My hope is also that others will be encouraged to see the hand of God at work just in our family. I remember a very long time ago thinking I wish that I could experience the miracles like Jesus’ disciples did. What I’ve come to realize is miracles like the ones in biblical times very much exist today. However, what I am equally reminded of is those disciples would not have experienced those miracles if they did not leave everything behind, that being their secure jobs and comfort zones, and follow Him. In other words, they had to take a leap of faith in their personal lives and that meant different things for each one of them. I can’t say that we have necessarily had the faith to leave everything behind to follow Him. It is more like the rug was pulled out from us or we were thrown overboard and in the midst of our stress and chaos, God has rescued us in miraculous ways! God has chosen to reveal Himself in magnificent ways in order for us to see miracles that we would have never experienced but it would not have happened apart from faith. Again, I wish that I could say that this were an automatic for us. We are and have been in a situation that requires faith because by all accounts we should be sinking financially but our faith has given us the peace even when times have been hard, that God is in control. For now, while there have been many trying days, we are renewed by the many miracles that God chooses to do in our lives as you can see from the various events that have occurred so far on our journey. I mentioned before that the word that has been burned in my mind lately is sacrifice. I could never accurately or come close to doing it justice as I write about the many sacrifices that have been made for us but I want to focus this post on some of the details of people’s sacrifice in order for us to be where we are today. I do this because I want this to serve as a written record for our family but also to encourage you that there are wonderful people in this world that often seems so self-centered.

One might think that we have family and friends that are rolling in the dough for us to experience the kind of monetary blessings like we have. God has simply taken the sacrifices of so many and multiplied it. When we first learned of Vince’s last layoff, we knew that outside of a miracle we were going under financially because we had nothing left. We threw our hands up in the air and just prayed to God. It wasn’t so much a prayer for God to save us because we had finally come to a point that if losing our house and everything we had materially was what was supposed to happen to us, then we had an indescribable peace. We were sad but at the same time had peace. It is such a hard kind of emotion to describe. Our prayer was for God to help us because we just didn’t know how to make sense of everything that was happening and we were just weary. We weren’t scared of losing it all. We just needed to be restored. Restored and currently saved from financial ruin is exactly what God chose to do.

I remember as we were leaving to go to my parents’ cabin for a much needed retreat shortly after finding out about Vince's latest layoff, we received two checks in the mail that would pay for the bills due the following week. Both of these people are not well off by any means but they are very generous. My brother and his wife both felt led separately to give all that he made during his work for a DiscipleNow weekend to us. Now, Blake and Emily are living by faith themselves as they are living off of raised support because he is the worship pastor for his church and they are about to have their first baby. The other check came from someone who was given a generous monetary gift and they wanted us to have a portion of it. They also are in a situation where they are having to watch their pennies but chose to have faith by giving away money they could use in order to bless us. Then, there is a couple who sent us a very generous monetary gift and days after sending it the lady learned she lost her job. We did not want to cash the check but she insisted that it would bless them if we did. Then, about a month later they sent us another check for the same amount of the first check while still being out of work. What a sacrifice and act of faith!!! Then, we had another situation where a couple who had already given generously to us felt led to give us part of the money they received back from their tax return. I can still remember getting the phone call as I was heading out the door to take the boys to school. After dropping them off, she met me at the bank with the money and also had made us dinner.

As I sit here and type this, tears just fill my eyes as I recount not only the magnitude of the sacrifices but just knowing the details of these people’s situations and how they would still give so generously to us. It is so important to us that our boys know these details because these people didn’t just give because they had extra. They did without so we could pay our bills! Then, I think of both sets of our parents who have tapped into their savings and retirement to help us. That just blows us away!

Just the other week my sister, Lorri, called me up to let me know she wanted to pay one of our bills. When she asked what bills we had left for the month, I told her the three bills that were left to be paid and what went from her paying one bill turned into her paying for two of them and her boyfriend, Nick, paying for the third. I couldn't believe as I looked at my calendar of bills that needed to be paid at that time that everything had been covered! It was such a relief!

Then, days later after our bills had been covered by Lorri and Nick, we received a few more bills and just as I was returning from taking the boys to the events I described in the post “A Fun Day” I received two checks in the mail, one being from the lady who lost her job and the other from Vince’s brother and sister-in-law, Shane and Jennifer, and their checks enabled us to pay for the bills that had come in since Lorri and Nick had paid for our bills. They had already been so generous to help before by sending us a check in the mail and here they were turning around again to help. Each one of these monetary gifts has their own story and I can say that the timing of each of these gifts has been no less than God’s perfect timing in terms of the amounts that came in and the bills that were due at that time. Then, a few days after sending us money, Shane and Jennifer offered to give Vince their own personal laptop because Vince's laptop was no longer working. What a gift of sacrifice-to be willing to give away something they valued and needed too. Then, we have received gifts from all of our grandparents who are on fixed incomes but yet they also stepped out on faith and gave generously. My mind just can not fathom the goodness of the people in our lives because just the mere fact that people would choose to sacrifice for us is both mind-boggling and humbling!

My reason for telling all of this is not to be a list of “Who’s Who” and trying to compare what everyone has done for us, but rather to record the story behind the sacrifice. This is just a tip of the iceberg in terms of the sacrifices that have been made. I have explained in detail with some of my other posts about the other sacrifices that have immensely blessed us. Part 2 of the sacrifices post will focus on the things that have also been equally important that are not monetary in nature but very much equal sacrifice in helping us stay encouraged in the midst of this time in our lives!