LauraB
Registered: January 2008
Posts: 43
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In 1996, my husband and I bought our first home. Our children were just two and almost one years old. Although the house was small, it had a large yard for the kids to play in. We had always dreamed of some day putting an addition on. My husband had come to know a man through work connections. He was someone who had a strong faith, and a good heart. He had always been very generous to us and to our kids. Many times he told me and my husband that we were like his children to him. We always spoke highly of him to our family. When my husband lost his job, he was one of the first persons I called. He assured me that everything would be alright. When we had finally decided to take out a home equity loan to build the addition, this man, as was his style, very generously offered to do the work for us to help us save money. He had built other homes and showed us pictures of the work he had done. We were of course very excited at the thought of finally being able to give our children bedrooms that would fit more than just their beds. And two bathrooms instead of one! Wow! The "Hurry Up" requests would decrease.In the fall of 2001, this man, who we had now known for 3-4 years, broke ground, poured the foundation and began building the structure. As time went on, I started having my doubts about the work he was doing. The roof was flat... how would that ever hold up in Nor' Easter? The ceiling height of the second floor was not even 6 feet high. The floor of the new part did not line up with the existing floor. He seemed to be a bit shady whenever it came time to talk to the building inspector. The inspector had many questions for him and eventually declared a cease and desist work order. This man was a fast talker and when we would question things, he would give me some answer that was supposed to appease me, but really left me feeling uneasy and with more questions. He would disappear for several weeks. He would not answer his phone and his voice mail would fill up so no messages could be left. Not that it mattered, because he didn't return the ones we did leave. The roof started leaking and every night I would wake up, and hear the drip, drip, drip and then lie in bed with knots in my stomach. It started leaking into our living area. My husband and I argued often because my husband so wanted to believe that this "friend" would do right by us and kept insisting that he would. The short story of a very long story is that this man left us with a mess and we had foolishly paid him $40,000 to do this. I had shed many tears and had many restless nights, worrying about how we could fix this and wondering what we should do. We had given this man $40,000. How could we afford to make this right? And how could someone who called himself your friend, take that much money from you, leave your home in a mess and then just disappear and not make it right with you? Not even offering an apology. This man just vanished and we never heard from him again.We had started going to church and we really liked the Pastor. He spoke often of the hard times he and his wife had while in seminary school and trying to make ends meet to feed his children. His message always seemed to say, " just trust in God and he will take care of you." It started sinking in and I began saying to myself, when I would start to despair over the situation, "It's out of my hands right now. God, it is in your hands." I eventually found a bit of calmness settle over me when I would say it. I started to truly believe that God would help us figure this out. Eventually we did come up with a plan. With the help of my in-laws we were able to get a new roof put on. A friend (a true and proven friend) gave many hours of his time for free to help us do the work. We now have two new bathrooms, a new laundry room and my son's bedroom is just about done. There is more work to be done, but we are in a much better place.This experience was the "door" being opened to my realization, that God will take care of me. It was the first time I can honestly say that I put my trust in God. I still find myself saying, when things are not going well, "God, it's in your hands"
A couple of months ago, I came across this passage, and it seemed to speak to this experience. I had to put my trust in God. I had to believe that he would take care of our situation. I didn't know it at the time, but in just this past week of discovering Faith Sisters and this Faith Discovery Challenge I have only just now realized that this experience was the "door" opening for me to begin having a true faith and trust in God.
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