This stories are so inspiring! I have one too: Last year (2011) was a hard year financially for us. My husband, Matthew, kept coming home from work earlier and earlier. There was no Christmas bonus. There was no annual raise. I was extremely worried. And also mad. My husband has been at his job for over 12 years. He used to make a very fair wage and have a company vehicle to drive. He was extremely loyal to them. After Hurricane Katrina when a lot of other Electricians were making a fortune doing side jobs, he stayed at his job and worked for them so they could make a fortune. Well, needless to say I thought they owed him something: respect, loyalty, a pay raise! But God knew best. In the beginning when he would come home early I would question him “Why are they doing this to you?” , “I can’t believe they took away your truck”. “Will you be getting a raise this year”? “You should quit and find another job”! I felt like they were not appreciative of how much he does for their company. He is always saving them money. And gets his jobs done way faster than the other crew leaders. I felt like they were emasculating him. But I was wrong, I was the one who was doing that. By always reminding him of the situation. With constant complaints about the lack of money. I was making him feel like he was at fault, like he was not providing for us. At some point the Lord led me to a book “Created to be His Help Meet” by Debi Pearl. After reading that book and spending a lot of time in prayer, I changed my attitude. I realized that the Lord was in control of the situation, He had always provided for us in the past, and He would in the future. Well, it came around to tax season of this year (2012). I started as I usually do on an online website. Then about half way through I realized something...we were getting back a LOT more than usual. So I switched to a different website and ran it through again. Same results! Being the skeptic I am , I ran it through a third website. And wouldn’t you know, same thing as the first two. The Lord had worked a miracle!!!! I am getting goose bumps as I write this just thinking about it again. Well, I couldn’t believe it, I told Matthew right away. He couldn’t believe it either. So we pulled out all the papers from last year, and sure enough it was more than half of what we had gotten back the prior year. After being amazed at that we pulled out his pay check stubs from this year and last. He had worked 160 hour less (which meant 160 more hours at home with us) and ended up making the same thing, once we got our tax return!!! We were shocked and amazed at how God had blessed us so much. Now I know some of you are going to read this and say “Oh, it’s just because you were in a different tax bracket from having worked less/made less”. But that’s not how I choose to see it. I choose to see God’s hand in this. He knew all about the tax bracket benefits, neither Matthew nor I had any idea. He knew just how many hours to send Matthew home early. And He knew just how to make me realize that I was hurting our marriage with my negativity. So I say “He truly is an AWESOME God!!!
