Mana for Moms

In a letter to new moms on her website, Megan Breedlove writes, "I well remember the feeling of holding my first child, a daughter, in my arms and being overwhelmed with love for her. I didn’t even know I was capable of such love until I met her. I love her so much I would die for her, if necessary. I’d throw myself in harm’s way without a second thought if it meant I could save her. And what I wish I’d realized at the time is that my love for my daughter is a mere reflection of how much God the Father loves me. In fact, God not only would sacrifice Himself for me and you, but He did. John 3:16 tells us that Jesus died on the cross so that you didn’t have to. Why? For the glory of God, certainly. But also because He loved you. Yes, God Almighty loves you that much. So when you hold your precious baby in your arms, think about that. That love you feel welling up in you, threatening to burst your heart? It’s but a fraction of the powerful love God feels for you." 

It's been so amazing for Aaron and I the past few weeks to think about how much God must love us if we know it's infinitely more than we love Davis. Babies are such a blessing and such a great reminder of How great God's love for us is.

Jehovah Jireh

In college, my small group studied the different names of God and the one that always had a special meaning for me was Jehovah Jireh, which means the Lord will Provide.  Because I was responsible for paying for my schooling, this was a truth I clung to when finances stressed me out (which was fairly often!).  And it was always cool to see how the Lord provided for me.

Throughout our house-buying process, I have been amazed by how many times Aaron & I have seen the Lord provide for us and how perfect His timing was!  Here are some examples of God's provisions and His timing that we've seen while we were working on our house:

1.  We bought the house through the Good Neighbor Next Door program, which provided a good way for us to be able to afford a house without worrying about a large mortgage.  
2. GNND is a program for classroom teachers.  And Aaron's no longer a teacher.  We closed on the house in May & by July we realized he was going to be switching jobs.  Perfect timing.  :)
3. We took the Financial Peace class at our church in January 2010 and really starting keeping a budget and saving intentionally for a house at that point.  If we hadn't started really saving diligently, we wouldn't have been able to save up money by November, which was when our house was listed & we put in a bid.  By the way, if you haven't taken Dave Ramsey's class, I highly recommend it.  We loved it & it's been incredibly beneficial!
4. Patience is not my strong suit.  Ask Andrea, our realtor.  :)  I emailed her multiple times every day to check our progress.  We originally were hoping to close on our house by Christmas 2010 but because of a hiring issue with the GNND program, it took f.o.r.e.v.e.r.  It was driving me crazy.  But looking back, I'm so thankful that we weren't able to close until mid-May!  Because Aaron & I both worked in the schools & had the summer off, we were able to do a lot of the work ourselves... and save money.  If we'd closed in December, we wouldn't have been very useful.  And we were able to save a lot more money to put toward renovations since we had almost 6 more months to save up.  Because of the logistics of the GNND program, we had to pay for all the renovations out of pocket, so being able to save longer was a pretty big deal.  We were actually able to do all the renovations we wanted & came in about $1500 under budget... which means if we'd closed earlier, I wouldn't have been able to put in the second bathroom...  Needless to say, I'm so thankful God didn't listen to me about speeding up our closing date!  :)  
5. God provided us time-and-time again with friends and family who helped us with our renovations!  Jeff is a family member & he helped with the construction projects and plumbing.  Our friend Jake helped with the electric work.  And numerous people came over to help us paint, knock down walls, paint, put up walls, paint, landscape the yard... and paint some more.  :)  We're so grateful!!

Seeing how the Lord orchestrated all the details of our home was incredible.  Our God really is great!  
(PS. The Proverbs 31 devotion actually talked about Jehovah Jireh today, if you're interested in reading it.)