Amazing Grace!

The year 2000 brought a lot of change for us. My husband wanted to leave his job of 16 years. I supported his desire, but finding a new job took longer than expected. When he did find work 3 months later, we were behind in our house payments.  I was working as a teaching assistant and my salary was not a lot. I was able to cover my car payment, utilities and food. God really came through for us surrounding us with favor. Multiple people blessed us financially during this time. 

After missing a few house payments,  we started getting foreclosure notices. By this time we had already put our home up for sale, but those notices brought stress! My husband went to speak to our pastor to ask for prayer. Even though he had found a full-time job, we did not have money to cover the missing mortgage payments. Our pastor said that they would not allow us to lose our home. He made arrangements to bring our mortgage up to date! We were amazed!

Once our house was under contract, we borrowed $500 from my mother-in-law to put a deposit on an apartment. However, we lost that apartment when our first contract on the home fell through.  The next day, another buyer put our home under contract but we didn't know when it would finalize. We also had nowhere to go since we lost the first apartment! While we were visiting my in-laws, their contractor was working on a remodel. He overheard our conversation and asked if we had a place to live.  We told him we didn't. He told us he had some brand new duplexes and nobody had ever lived in them. We asked how much the deposit would be. He said since he knew our parents, he would not charge us a deposit! Wow! Again, we were amazed! 

Once the sale of our house was finalized, we paid all our past due bills. We were able to work with all our creditors and pay every single debt off. We had a clean slate!! After all was said and done, we had exactly $500 left over! That was the exact amount we owed my mother-in-law and we paid her back!

What a wild ride we had that year!  However, I can say that God's Amazing Grace was very present in our time of need!

"The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." Psalm 103:8

Leigh Aten

Brownsville, TX