My Heart's Desires

Psalm 37:3-5 Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.

About two years ago, while I was still working, I was feeling very overwhelmed. At the time I only had Jazlyn, but my husband was working and going to school. On top of that, our work schedules were never the same, so we hardly ever got to see each other. I also felt like I was missing Jazlyn grow up.

I laid in bed one night and was just a mess. I told God that if I couldn't stay home then I didn't want anymore kids. I'm sure He was like "Oh, really?" You know, since I have complete control over when we have kids. Seriously though, I was letting God know what my heart's desire was. Not that He needed me to tell Him, but I think God wants us to be honest with him and speak what is on our hearts. My honest truth was that I didn't want to have another child and have to miss that child's first step or first word because he or she was in daycare all day every day.

After that night I went on with my life. But you can be sure that I kept letting God know that I wanted to be able to stay home, especially when I found out about Isaiah. Don't get me wrong. I didn't have a miserable job that I absolutely hated. I actually liked my job most of the time, but I missed my family.

Once Isaiah was getting ready to make his entrance into the world, my hubby did have a different job making more money. I still didn't feel though that I could quit my job. I kept crunching the numbers trying to make it work, but I just didn't see how it was possible. I did feel, however, that God was telling me that I should quit my job. It did make some sense, since daycare would have been so expensive with two kids, but I still didn't see how it would work on one income.

Well, you probably already know that it did work. I kept praying about quitting my job to make sure that it was really what I was supposed to do. Even after Isaiah was born (I did work a couple months after he was born), I kept going over the numbers over and over again. I still didn't see how we would make it. I feel this was my first big faith test. I still felt like God was telling me to quit my job even though I didn't think it would work out. I finally listened and quit.

We have been absolutely fine. It actually hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I thought there would be times where we would have to live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which I was willing to do. That has not been the case at all. God has given me wisdom on handling our finances. He has truly taken care of us. We have more food in our house than we did while I was working. We were even able to do some Christmas shopping!

My life is proof that the above verses are indeed true. Why don't you go read them again? You know you want to.

~Melissa


*Disclaimer-Let me clarify that I am not saying that God will give you whatever you want. He will give you your heart's desires in His timing, if they are in His will, and if you trust and have faith in Him.