Rough Times... But His Mercy Covered Us!

I haven't really posted about our life in awhile.

Things have been extremely stressful here lately. I'll explain...

We STILL are not in our house. There have been some frustrating circumstances that we have encountered along the way. For some reason we were denied the loan at first because of "shock payment" since we have not rented a place since June. I didn't know you could be denied a loan because of that, but... we were. So we had to work hard to get to the point where the loan was approved. And guess what? IT WAS! :) We close on the house Tuesday, 12/20. We are planning on moving in Wednesday and Thursday. I want that Christmas tree up and our first Christmas there! I'm so excited. You all know there will be tons of pictures! I'm just so thankful for God's blessing on this! It has been a long, devastating process, but we are ALMOST there!

My car broke down. Even more devastation. I worked so hard for that sucker! And it just... died. Well, it started overheating while E was driving it and now it just continues to do that and suck the antifreeze completely out of it. I could have cried when the mechanic said he thought it was the headgasket. A $1500 fix for a $2000 car? Not likely. So that only meant one thing-- scrapping it. Yes, I felt sick to my stomach. BUT, we took it to a Dodge mechanic and he believes it is the radiator. He said he'd put money on it (we are holding him to that ;) haha) so E ordered a $70 radiator and as soon as it arrives, we are going to try that. Lets all cross our fingers that it works, so I can have a car again, haha!

While that was broke down, we only had one vehicle: a 1998 Dodge Ram. My husband drives 75 miles to work ONE WAY, so you can imagine what our gas bill was looking like each week, right? $40 a day X 5 days= $200 a week. Once again, I felt sick. But God had mercy on us and a family up the street from us was selling a 2 door Cavalier for CHEAP. We got a check in the mail for a grant E received from school and we bought a new car for him!

Through all of these financial difficulties, we still hadn't bought any presents for Tayler. It was so sad because it's her first Christmas and I know she won't "know" but goodness-- we still wanted to get her things! I got paid on Thursday and it took FOREVER to get deposited, but we finally got the money this week.. after all of the good things happened, so we used my pay check to buy Tayler presents!! I'm going to tell you.. being little is awesome, haha! We aren't to the stage in life where her Christmas list consists of a laptop, cell phone, and all those other things that suck a bank account dry. We got her 5 toys, a DVD (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse-- favorite!), 5 summer outfits, 5 winter outfits, and 3 sleepers... all for a little under $100! THAT'S AMAZING!

God has been SO good to us this week!! We had a rough month, but he showed more mercy on us these past few days then we could have EVER asked for! We get to celebrate Christmas together in our new house! What more could we ask for? Now I just cannot wait to put up that Christmas tree!! And put the presents under it of course! :)

Thank You Lord for all of Your goodness!!