Above and Beyond

I have been practically bursting at the seams with excitement to tell you how God has worked in our car situation, and it has been killing me to have had to wait to write this!

So, a brief recap: 3 weeks ago I had a car accident (no one was hurt), the van (our only vehicle) was totaled. We had been renting a van for 3 weeks as we waited for the insurance to decide on the van and then send us a check for the payout.

After learning that the van was being considered a total loss, and while waiting for some decisions to be made regarding this scenario, God gave me this verse : Ephesians 3:20 - "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us." So I claimed it. In fact, God and I have this wonderful relationship full of humor and joy and challenging one another. So I said, "God, that's what your Word says, so I want to see it happen." Keep in mind that it says "abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think." 


I challenged God to show me up. Now He has given me an extremely wonderful, vivid imagination and this became a true source of excitement at this point. Because I would think of some way He could work in this situation that would so awesome, and then He would bring that verse back to me and I would say, "Ok God. Out do me!" And this went on for some time. Now let me tell you, God had been building up my excitement and really I was at the point where I was just wondering what He could possibly do to do better than all the scenarios that I had come up with that would have just been incredibly awesome.

But show me up He did. Not only were we able to get a new van for less than the payout on our old one, but the insurance is also covering the taxes and best of all Josh went and looked at it and decided on it by himself!

Now some of you are wondering why that is so exciting, so let me explain. I make a lot of the decisions for our family. In fact, I make practically all of them. I am a natural leader and Josh is not. I can be very controlling and since I am very level headed, naturally I think I am always right and just take over decisions. For some time now, God has really been working on my heart about what it means to be a submissive wife. What He has shown me is that a lot of times, I make the decision, or push Josh to make the decision I want him to make, because I don't trust him to do what I think is best. But what I am really saying is that I don't trust God to do what is best, or to even lead Josh to the decision that is best.

Ouch! Yeah, let's just take it as it is, I'm trying to be the one in control. However, on the other side of this - for me to be a submissive wife in the way God wants me to be, it also means that Josh has to step up to be the leader. Now as I said earlier, this is where it gets hard, because I like to lead and he doesn't. So for me to be submissive (trusting and supportive) and for him to lead are the complete opposites of our fleshly desires.

So back to the car situation. God worked in a way abundantly above all I could ask or think because in not one of the scenarios I could come up with did Josh make the decision all on his own, while I made the decision to trust and support whatever decision he made. That was huge! And let me just say that Josh made a great decision choosing a van that really fits our needs and even negotiated the price way down to below what we were willing to spend saving us a little money; talk about stepping out of his comfort zone!!

You know what, I think I could get used to this trust thing. Thanks God!