My Jesus. My Savior. My God. He's a God of details.

My heart is bursting with thanksgiving today, and I just can't keep it to myself. It's the week of Easter, and I feel it is so important to reflect about the goodness of my Savior, Jesus Christ. I know a lot of people do not believe in God, but my question is always how can you not believe in God? I figured it might be a good time to reflect on God's grace, goodness, and mercy with Easter coming on Sunday. I'm going to go back in time a bit and show you some of the details that are simply amazing to my family. This blog is a bit random because I have so many thoughts in my head. I do apologize if I don't follow things clearly.

• 2006--We make a decision for my husband to return to school and rely mostly on my income.
• 2008--I receive a position at a simply wonderful school that I take out of the blue.
• 2009--I go back to school for my master's degree. I find out that I am pregnant with Micah.
• 2010--I have Micah, and I pray fervently to stay home with my son. My husband has now been without full time employment for four long years. By the grace of God, I am able to stay home for almost a year with our son. I graduate from Arkansas State University with my Masters in Educational Theory and Practice.
• Early 2011--A check shows up in the mail covering the rest of my time off for the remainder of the 2010-2011 school year. It blows us away, but it covers three months of my salary. I stay home with Micah very happily until August 2011.
• 2011--I return to work heavy hearted, but I am aware that the Lord has a plan for our life. I'm exactly where I am meant to be, and we feel confident (though not always happy) with my decision to work. We continue to pray for God's blessings financially as we seek to pay off our debt.
• 2012--My husband received a letter in the mail the week of Easter stating his loans were PAID IN FULL. This leaves us (basically) debt free except for our house. A month later? My husband is given his first full time job in almost five years. We are shocked by both blessings. Suddenly, we have an income where there has been none for five years. We also have no loans to pay. It was crazy ridiculous.
• Late in 2012, we feel God is calling us to move. However, we are still living in our current home. Stepping out on faith (and most people thinking we are totally crazy), we begin to look for a home that will fit our longterm needs. Our desires were: schools, proximity to our jobs, proximity to family, bigger house, smaller payment then we currently have for any future possibilities that a change occurs with one of our jobs.
• We know all that is crazy. There is no way to upgrade your house with a smaller payment than your 2005 purchase. Impossible. Well...four houses later...we found "the house" and the wheels are set in motion.
• 2013--We close (narrowly) on our new house. We had a specific loan under specific circumstances that we were looking at obtaining due to the mortgage payment and down payment. Do you know how close we came to losing that loan? $85. Thankfully, the $85 showed up in an unexpected way!! It sounds crazy because we qualified for many other loans, but if we had any other loan...many things would go UP in our monthly finances. Our entire goal was to have our expenses go DOWN. This is in case one day I could possibly stay home with Micah or in case something happens to C's job. We are very frugal people, and we just like to live on what we make or less. 
• January 2013--We attend a meeting about a mission trip to South Dakota. I desperately want to go on this trip. In many ways, my heart is still out in the western United States. I spent a couple of summers in Montana, I took a mission trip to Arizona, and I grew up with my parents traveling out west ministering to the people out there. C tells me, "We can't go if we have two houses. The deadline is March 31st. We will pray that God will sell our house by March 31st. If he does, we will go." We start to pray that prayer.
• March 2013--We closed on our new home, and we started the major undertaking to list our current home. I'm a nervous wreck about the possibility of TWO mortgage payments, but C is steady as a rock. "God has brought us this far, He's going to sell our house quickly." 
• March 2013--Home is listed & contract on it within six days. The contract is presented on March 28th--just days before the mission trip deadline.
• April 2013 (Lord willing)--We hope to close on our former home four days before our payment on our new home is due.

God is a God of details.

Two things I noticed about the last two years--

1. This time last year we received a letter in the mail stating that C's loans had been paid in full. This happened on the Thursday of Holy Week, the day before Good Friday.

2. This year, we received word on Thursday of Holy Week, the day before Good Friday, that our house was under contract.

God is a God of details.

While pondering all these things throughout this Holy Week, I had some other things going on. One of my friends from college, Will Gray, is very near death in a hospital in LA, California, suffering from cancer that has simply overtaken his body. I have been going back and forth between "Why?" and "Why not?" I'm not really sure why God chooses to do the things He does in this life. Why am I so blessed, but someone else was born an orphan?

I am praying fervently that Will is not going to die, and I have hope that the Great Physician can heal him. After all, look at all the wonderful things the Lord has done in my own life? I couldn't not have fathomed the blessings He has given me!! Who's to say He won't heal Will?

I posed this question to my husband as I cried over Will one night this week, and C replied, "I think you have it all wrong. It hurts when we lose someone. However, maybe they are the one truly blessed? God has chosen them to come home first. We are still stuck in a world full of sin. We feel like we are blessed because of our good health, but maybe...just maybe...the person with the worst circumstance in our eyes has the best circumstance of all."

This Easter, I'm sitting at home because I also ended up in the ER last night with a staph infection. I'm home this morning, but I'm well aware of how many different, difficult situations are going on in the world. I know that I am saved. I know my friend Will is saved. I know Jesus has done incredible things for my family. While I ponder these questions and thoughts this morning, I am still thankful that Jesus died and rose again for me. I'm not quite sure what everything means in this life, but I'm thankful for knowing I am His.

Happy Easter.