Venting... An Epilogue

Sometimes I forget that God is so much bigger than $75.

Stupid? Absolutely. But I can be such a halfwit when it comes to chilling out and trusting Him. Every now and then, I have to be smacked around a little bit. And this time, well He used 30 teenagers from Fort Worth to get the point across.

Last week, August Gate participated in a youth missions camp called PowerPlant. Kids from all over the country go to different cities and help local church plants in the area by doing service projects or whatever the church needs done. The group that helped us was from Cana Baptist Church in Burleson, TX. Their youth group helped us clean, organize and paint the children's area inside the church we rent from and they did some landscaping around the neighborhood as well. They were such great kids and really did a great job with everything.

At night, after the service projects and dinner, they all met back up at a local university campus for their evening worship and teaching time. Todd was the evening speaker for the week (which was pretty surreal to observe, after being a youth camper myself for SO many years), and on Monday night, speaking about the way the Gospel should change our hearts as well as our actions, he brought up the story about our neighbors.

At that point, I was perfectly aware of the way I needed to internally handle that situation-- but I wasn't there yet. I was still pissed. We didn't have the money for the ticket and our neighbors were passive-aggressively antagonizing us. I wanted time to sulk a little.

To keep the ticket from doubling, we'd gone to set a court date, trusting that the money would get figured out before the middle of July.

On Friday morning, while Todd was laying out the plan for their final day of work, the kids interrupted him and presented him with a weathered manila envelope with "PTO" printed in sharpie on the front.

Parking Ticket Offering. Contents: $126.00 of their own money.

Needless to say, I was immediately humbled and convicted about my ridiculous behavior.

As of today, the ticket is paid in full and car that got the ticket (the Element) is sold-- to a young guy and his pregnant wife from Fayetteville, Arkansas. We put it up on craigslist and within 3 days, we got a call. We were able to pay off the car loan and still made some money from the sale (which helps out with the last couple of bills this month). We'll be saving over $350/month being a one-car family, and since we both live and work so close-by its really not a big hassle. (We've been practicing for the past three weeks, it's SO nice not having to worry about parking at work :) Also, we just happen to be in the week of Financial Peace University where we do the debt snowball and talk about having "gazelle-like intensity" when it comes to getting out of debt. We were ready to sell the car. Wanted and needed to. Dave Ramsey affirmed our decision. And the Lord provided a buyer quickly. And guess what? The buyer paid cash. Two years worth of income tax returns. Done and Done.

God is good. Equally as good as He was the day we got the ticket. And as good as He will be on the day we're debt free.