12 more days...

A lot has happened, and a lot is going on, so we'll see how concise I can be. This is difficult for me. Let's see if I can remember everything.

My parents came over and helped us clear out a lot of the garage. The garage now looks somewhat clean, and it's wonderful. We're now working on getting all of the things out of the house and into the garage to be put in storage. There is a large load of trash in there right now that my dad is coming to get this morning. Once that is gone, it will look even cleaner.

The basement has been primed thanks to help from Seth and Laura, and Kevin and Kelsey are coming over today to hopefully help us paint it. Besides paint, trim, doors, flooring, and just about everything in the bathroom... the basement is done.

As far as getting out of the military is concerned, I ran into a few snags. I went to turn in my equipment, and found out I'm missing about $900 worth of gear. I've been hitting ebay up to get what I can, and think I may be able to get most of it for about $300. The most expensive thing I'm missing is my sleeping bag, which costs about $260. I'm hoping I can get one online for about $130. The other things are odds and ends that I either lost, or it got stolen.

This is bad news, especially considering our very tight financial situation, but God is faithful. I looked at our finances yesterday, and discovered that based on the amount of money we have, the amount I know we are for sure getting, and the projected expenses we will have, we have just enough to survive the for the first semester at TMS. I'm not sure if God will only allow us to have this now to trust Him for the next semester, or if He'll give us more for the future, but I am confident that He will survive.

One more note, someone asked me if not being able to rent out the house would keep me from going to seminary, and I said I'm not too worried about it because we could survive a couple of months without renting, and even if we couldn't find someone, we could rent it for a few hundred dollars less than our payment... but that doesn't really answer the question. The truth is, this house will not stop us from completing seminary. We will try to keep it, but if we can't, it's not the end of the world. It's just a house, and though we love it, and we are very thankful for it, we know it's still just house. I'm not sure if the Lord will allow us to keep it, but either way, we are resolved to complete seminary at TMS. Besides, there are other places to live in St. Paul. (hint hint, we are still adamant about moving back!)

So there is our update. It's been an interesting transition shifting from trusting our own resources and abilities to trusting God. The only thing I have observed is that although it seemed at times we were trusting ourselves, it was always God that was providing for us. It may not have been as obvious, but it was still God's provision.

On a spritual note, I haven't had much time to process everything quite yet. I wish all of this trusting God and watching Him work miracles to help us get everything done has led to spiritual bliss, but it hasn't always been the case. What has struck me, though has been the amazing consistency of Christ. Christ's faithfulness has not been contingent on anything. Whether I'm up or down, Christ is consistent. Clearly, Christ is leading me. He is Lord, and I am so thankful for that. As I learn to lean on Him for physical needs, He is teaching me to leanon Him for spiritual needs as well.

Yes!!!

An answered prayer. Today my parents came over with a 20 foot enclosed trailer, and worked all day hauling out trash and helping clean our garage. I didn't get Greek exam #4 done, but boy was a lot done today. I really love my parents. You have no idea how wonderful they are. They have no idea how wonderful they are. The only sad part is even after all the cleaning, there still isn't any room in our garage. But, as my wife puts it, it's an "organized mess." I always found the concept of those two words being used together humorous, but that's for another blog.

I am exhausted, and hopefully by God's grace I can knock out Greek exam #4 tomorrow morning before church.

In other news, the knock-down paint job on our ceiling was done, so they should be coming in tomorrow to finish sanding, and then we can paint the basement, and work on the trim. It will be nice when that gets cleaned up and finished. My brother in law, Scott, who has also been a tremendous blessing and answer to prayer, has been tirelessly working on finishing a lot of the detail work down there, and so far hasn't asked for any money that we don't have. God has just been delivering things to us on a silver platter (it seems) sometimes. I am so very thankful for how he seems to be making this transition so smooth for us, but at the same time teaching us to trust Him.