Gods In It...(Pt.2)

[Altonwoods]

It was in May of '08 that they re-possessed my car, a 2003 Subaru Brat, and within a week or so I was given a car to use that had been given to my pastor at the time by one of his congregation. Losing that car was hard, but it was fortunate for me in that by doing so I became eligible to receive
food stamps without which my wife, daughter and I might have gone
hungry! This was also the last month that I was able to make my mortgage
payment of 700.00 on my home and 63 acres. It was along about this time I
started thinking something was up and that my circumstances were a conspiracy of sorts. The things that I was
able to do successfully were quite limited and for many months
consisted of going to the grocery store, church, writing and an
occasional venture into West Plains to Wal-mart or Aldi's for necessities. One day I was reading
another blog and I came across this bit of wisdom which seemed to
describe my situation, it said...

"Sometimes when it seems as though you've lost everything that's the time when God shows you He's really all that you need!"

Those words seemed to bring me comfort because more and more I was understanding their truth and relevance in my life. I spent that summer blissfully unsure of whether I was in a state of grace or one of
perdition. Despite the fact that my world was crumbling around me and I was
apparently unable to do anything but watch it happen, this was an
incredible time of spiritual awakening within me. I'll always remember
things like walking down my driveway at sunset talking to the
Lord in the cool of the evening, or how even though we had hardly any
money we always had gas to go into town to church and we even paid
tithes! We still had a roof over our heads and plenty to eat and I
wrote some of my most heart felt blogs about my deepening relationship
with Christ and my total dependence upon Him. It was my "surrender" that
allowed me to have peace knowing that there was a purpose to all that
my family and I were going through.

My inability to pay my child support became a huge issue, I was summoned to court to show cause and I tried to explain my predicament to the judge. There was absolutely no way in the world that I could get a job without my having a drivers
license which they had suspended! I was asked to return again at a later
date which I did although the situation remained unresolved. My third
scheduled appearance I was unable to make because I didn't have the
100.00+ it cost's in gas to make the five hour trip so I faxed the
prosecutor asking for a continuance. Very soon after that I was told
about the possibility of getting a job driving a school bus. I knew that
you had to have a background check done to get it and that I probably
had a bench warrant out for me so I stopped in at the sheriff's
department one afternoon and sure enough I was a wanted man! They seemed
pretty shocked by what I was doing but dutifully took me into custody. I
spent the next ten days in jail, after two days they sent a car for me to
take me back to Cass county, it was a five hour ride in the back of a
cop car with my hands tightly cuffed behind my back "Cass-catraz" I
believe the inmates called it...

After I got out I didn't get the first job that I was after but within a few weeks a friend at church told me about another school that was looking for a driver and eventually I was hired! One of the things that was so incredible was
that I was hired with barely enough time for me to work and receive a
paycheck so that I could make a 400.00 support payment that the judge
ordered me to make! When I first got this job I was so broke, I remember
that I had to ask the superintendent to loan me twenty bucks until I
got paid so that I'd have enough gas to get back and forth to work. That
was in October of 2008, and for the next eight months nothing really
changed except that I added "Go to work" to my routine and had a little
more money. Speaking of money, here's something that will put my
financial situation in proper perspective...In 2008 I made a total of
2950.00! I actually paid more in child support than I made the whole
year, they took my 3900.00 tax return and I paid them over 600.00 to get
me out of jail, 400.00 to keep me from going back to court and two or
three hundred more in Nov. and Dec.

My home mortgage was almost a year behind by now, and even though my banker was a very kind and patient man who tried to help me avoid losing my home we both knew what was coming. My house had been on the market
for over a year and the only real offer I had was for 100,000 which was
rejected by our sales person without bringing it to us first for being
too low. Ironically our house ended up selling for about 25% less than
even that offer when it was all said and done! My house and property
was appraised by the bank and came in at 148,000.00 I owed about 72,000
which is what the bank sold it for, I walked away with nothing...