FocusOnTheFamily

Newlyweds in the financial desert

Written by Summer Bethea

After two months of marriage, my husband and I took the “leave and cleave” passage (Genesis 2:24) literally and moved five states west from our families.

We sensed the Lord calling us to a place away from everything familiar. We were Abraham and Sarah on a faith quest to the Promised Land.

But after two months, with our savings depleted and my husband still without a job, we found ourselves in a financial desert.

My husband applied at restaurants and pizza delivery places; we robbed our guitar fund; we hawked our gold; I sold my blood plasma.

As I watched my fluid drain into a bag and considered the $25 paycheque, I was tempted to feel bitter. OK, I fell severely to bitterness, worry, fear and blame.

Then our landlord’s company served us with eviction papers. My God, have You forsaken us?

Only one thing massaged my aching faith: Christian radio. Sitting on the floor, I lost myself in the lyrics of a Michael W. Smith song, letting myself truly believe their promises: “Lift your hands, they can be held by someone greater, the Great I Am.”

We distributed flyers for my husband’s fitness business, hoping that creating a business would lift us out of our financial troubles. After 10 flyers, we called it quits.

But the Great I Am is greater. From those 10 flyers, two bore fruit, providing two long-term clients and a rent-free facility.

Through the heat of those testing months, we gained a bond stronger than gold and more precious than plasma, a profitable business and confidence in a sovereign Provider who sometimes lets His people wander until they learn to trust Him.

Summer Bethea lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, Jerome.

© 2007 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

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