Broken and Torn, but God is Good

I must confess that this blog post went through about five different titles over the past few days. There has been so much going on this last week I didn’t exactly know where to start but I think I finally do. God is good. That is what I must start with but I have to give some back story. A week ago Today I was frustrated, scared and even a little angry if I am honest. I had twisted me knee on Sunday the September 29th and thought that sleeping on it would make it feel better. But Monday morning around 12:30am I woke up with the some of the worst pain I have felt maybe ever. I realized then and there that I had done a whole lot more to my knee than just twisting it a little. We went to the doctor the next day and they did a few tests on it and the doctor regretfully informed us that in her professional opinion, I had torn my MCL (Medial Collateral Ligament). With that she said we would need to get imaging on the knee to see how bad the tare was and for me to keep my knee as immobile as possible with no weight bearing. My heart sank. I had just gotten off of a car wreck that put me out of work for two months and gobbled up our savings and now this? Unlike with my wreck I would not be able to even do any house work because that would require standing. My heart sank even more. This would put so much more pressure and extra work on Steven. I couldn’t even imagine forcing that on him and yet, I could do nothing to help. I couldn’t help but feel that I was letting him down, big time. If I had just not been so stupid I wouldn’t be in this position. If I had just left me feet firmly on the ground I would be able to still work and we could afford our apartment. However with this new injury and no savings we wouldn’t be able to afford to continue to live here for much longer at all. The walls seemed to be caving in on us and it was all my fault. we had to make a decision fairly quickly about signing our lease again or go month to month for two  months and then move. We had no where to go if we did go month to month but we couldn’t afford to stay. This is where it got interesting.
Steven and I were driving home from Westminster and we stopped at a light before getting onto I-70. Steven took a deep breath and looked over at me fore a moment before saying, “Meran, would you be willing to take our…living situation on faith?” he paused and took a deep breath, “I mean, would you be willing to sign the 60 day notice and believe that God would provide us a place to live at the end of it?” I know this is the kind of moment that Christian women should desire to hear form her husband and when it comes they smile and follow absolutely. For me I felt like I just stared at him for a few minutes. This was so unlike him. Steven needed a plan before he acted. He was the one who had things always mapped out before even thinking about making a decision. I was the impulsive crazy, “lets just try it and see what happens,” one in the relationship. And here I was sitting like an idiot scared senseless at the thought of taking our housing situation by faith. I swallowed back a huge objection and then nodded, “if you think that’s what God is leading us to, I’m on board,” is something close to what I remember saying. My stomach was in my butt and my mouth felt dry. What the heck was going on? and what if we couldn’t find a housing situation that worked for us? what if we couldn’t find a place to live that was within our budget? would we camp out in a hotel room?
That night I didn’t sleep too well. But the next morning I was up and ready to make phone calls. We were leaving it up to God to bring us something that would work but that didn’t mean I was just going to sit back and do nothing. I made a few phone calls to people asking if they knew someone who had a basement that could be rented for a while. Steven had suggested I call our friends, the Mudds, and see if we could rent from them. I reminded him that they had someone renting form them so that wouldn’t work sadly. I called them any way just to see if they had friends that could maybe help us. I got no good news from the phone calls and I left a few messages. My heart was sinking again. How was this happening? How could God let this happen? Why was it happening to us? I know that there are things worse than tearing and MCL and not knowing where you are going to be living in two months. I know that but in the moment its hard to remember.
I know this story seems to drag a little like a sob story and you are probably wondering when I am going to be getting to the God is good part. well…here it is. about three hours after I made those phone calls I got a call back from the Mudds. I had left a message on their cell. Kathie chuckled a little as she explained that she and Steve had just been talking about renting out the basement a few days before. I was confused but she explained the renter from before had moved out a year or so ago. She said she would be thrilled if we could move in. They could use the extra money that would come from rent to boot. God is good! So now we have a place to move to that is affordable for us. We are going to be able to live on Steven’s income alone till I get back on my feet and even start paying off debt a bit faster than we would have been able to other wise. Yes God is indeed good!