Black & White / Answers

I love the outfit I'm waering today. It's based roughly off some pins, but mostly the shirt is awesome, so a great necklace, jeans and a pair of boots and it's set. 

Boots: Zellers - Canada ($30 on sale currently)

Jeans: Reitmans - Canada

Shirt: Target - USA

Necklace: Old Navy - Canada ($10)

Also if you come over to visit, you'll notice a section of our ceiling is leaking and badly patched. Every morning when the people upstairs shower at 6am it leaks. Looks you can see the water running off the cardboard. And below you can see the bucket we must leave ther to collect water.

Wait, cardboard to help fix a leak? That seems terrible. 
Yup.
And a permanent bucket to collect leaky water?
Gross.
That's our landlords idea of a fix. 

 

Oh man, I can not wait until we move! Speaking of which, we would love to move to a 4-5 bedroom house somewhere within 15 minutes of this current house. Basically from Fraser to Arbutus, King Edward to 57th. We're pretty open. We don't want to pay more than $2000. We want a yard. 

Miracle needed. Please inform me of any miracle homes you find that meets those parameters. We'd like to move for January but only if the house is perfect. 

Oh! Wednesday night I went to visit my friend Leah Lim. She is awesome. I really like her. We were at her house for dinner on Sunday, I mentioned it here. Not only is she one half of the amazing couple that is 'Nate and Leah Lim' but she's also a rad friend. I met Leah January of 2006 right after I got saved, at the very first EN event that I went to. Since that moment she has extended friendship, grace and a lot of fun. When I met her she was newly married and in school, and now she has just celebrated her 7 year wedding anniversary and has two sweet little ones! You may remember her daughter from Trick or Treating with Connor last year. Anyways, it was so great to hang out with Leah for the evening - conversation is always so natural and we had a lovely time. I'm thankful for women like her in my life. 

So....remember yesterday how I said we were trusting God but had no what the resolution would be? And that it was either the gov's fault or H&R block's fault? Well turns out that the fine folks at H&R Block entered my severance package from Uranium One on the wrong line. By doing this it caused our return amount to jump by $3500. Now it causes us to owe that much. Obviously if we had known we would never have spent that money. In fact I waited a while to spend it in case of error. I'm so bugged now! Now that money was put on debt, so at least it went somewhere good but still it sucks. We'll have to borrow the money to pay the government back and since I'm the only income while Paul's in school we'll have to borrow it with no way to pay it back for a year. How's that for fun?

When Paul called to tell me I was riding my bike home. I spent the rest of the trip trying not to bawl, rather unsuccesfully. 

My tears were of frustration, not anger at God. Frustration at the situation, that is. 

The good news is, because of the apple upgrade on iPad's I had been going to exchange my week and a half old iPad 3 for an iPad 4. To do this I had to return my iPad for a full refund and then preorder a new one Thursday night. I returned my iPad as planned, but we got this news Thursday, so obviously I skipped ordering the new one and will be iPad-less for some time. 

I know, I know - this is a first world problem. I get that. Can I tell you that I cried though? Sometime next week I'll be receiving in the mail a keyboard and case for my new iPad that I no longer have. That will be a sad day. I'm not normally great at saving up for things and this time I did it! And I was patient! Our iPad was stolen in June and I waited until mid October to buy a new one. That is patience like I have never had before. 
But again #firstworldproblems, I know.

So now we are left to figure out a payment plan...
all because some idiot at H&R block put my severance in the wrong line. 

Paul is now on the warpath basically if it's not nailed down and it has any value he wants to sell it. My first instinct is to cut back on our budget even further than we already were and see how we can start to repay this new debt. If we sell things, we won't get much for them and then later have to replace them. I'd rather see where in our budget and future earnings we can find a way to repay. 

I talked about the tendency to problem solve in a post back when I was sick in February. Ironically the post was written a few days before I threw my back out. And yesterday I wrote about peace about an hour before I found out how bad the situation truly was. Apparently I tempt fate by blogging about how awesome God is. 

Anyways, back to problem solving. The question is this: is this a moment to have faith that God will provide? Or is this is a moment to in faith take steps to move towards being out of this problem? Or is it a bit of both?

At well level does my problem solving and planning tell God, "don't worry, I've got it" and at what point is my problem solving and planning telling God, "thank you for all you do, I plan in faith that you are sovereign". That's a tricky balance. We both struggled with that yesterday. 

So Thursday went much like Monday, my plans were cancelled, I wore pajama's and showered and blow dried my hair and Paul and I chose to extend extra lots of love and affection to each other in the midst of the trial. 

I dont' know exactly how this will play out. I don't know if we were be in this home or another home in January. I don't know how many students we'll have living with us if we do have a new home. I don't know when we'll start trying for a baby or how long that will take. I don't know where or when Paul will get a job after school. I don't know what ministry looks like for us in the future. I don't know much. 

But I do know that God's providence exists. I do see his provision in my life. I do know I am loved and cared for by the God of the universe. And those things are enough.