God's Faithfulness

"He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it." ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:24

How many times in life do we feel called to do something, and we wonder if it will ever come to pass? We spend seven years praying for a healing, a job, a child, all the while wondering if God gave us the idea in the first place...

I encourage you today with a testimony and the charge to never give up!

I married my husband on a beautiful day in October of 1998. He was a union carpenter then, and he has continued to work as such for the past 10 years. Union work is great, as the benefits are wonderful, there is some time off to do family things without having to worry about them missing you at work, and other such things. However, when the layoffs come, you're "out of work" again, until the next job. Sometimes, they can last for months at a time. The only real problem with this is the uphill/downhill, in the hole/out of the hole finances. It makes life tough when you're trying to save, but then you get laid off again and have to get the money out to pay the bills. It feels like a never-ending merry-go-round-the-mountain kind of life.

We attend Holy Spirit-filled church. We put our trust and our faith in God alone. He is big, and He is mighty to save. He also sends people into your life that are prophets, bringing a word straight from the heart of God to your ears. You know He's real when someone that you have never met in your life starts to pray over you and reads your mail as if they opened the letter to your life!

One such prophet is a dear friend to us, Pastor Jim Jorgensen, and he has spoken financial stability and a position as a company man over my husband for the past 10 years that we have been married. For those 10 years we have been praying together and walking through every possible door that opened to my husband during his career as a union carpenter. He has gone on job interviews, taken side jobs, worked for one construction company as an estimator, and plenty more. For 10 years, it seemed as though the doors would close again as quickly as they opened.

This past spring, Vic worked a couple of union jobs on Nuclear Power Plant Shutdowns. These were great jobs, but they took him away from home for three months at a time. It was the first time that I would consider letting him go away from home for work, not coming home every night. We have young children, and I didn't want to raise them alone for extended periods of time. On the completion of the second stint, he came home and was out of work for a few weeks. Longing to return to a job, he started looking for contact phone numbers to see if there was more power plant work. Unable to find them, he went to a box that had been shipped to him while he was away. In that box, he didn't find the numbers he was looking for, but he found contact information for a supervisor he'd worked with on a job four years ago! In God's kingdom, there is no coincidence! Only God Himself could have put that there! He called, on a "whim".

The supervisor put him in touch with the HR guy he needed to speak with, and within a day, he had a new job. The wild thing? It was the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. They wanted him to be in Alabama on Tuesday for work! We live in NY. Whew! That's a journey!
Being on unemployment at the time, we were just receiving the first check, which was barely enough, but it got him on the road! God provides when He opens the door!

We've been in the deep south for going on half a year now, and we just got the answer to the prayers that we've been praying for the past 10 years...God called my husband to be a company man, and he has just 10 years later been offered his first salary package! And to testify further, God has doubled our annual income, just as He promised that financial stability! When God calls you to something, remember, He is faithful to do it!

If you'd asked me a year ago if I'd ever be living in Alabama, I'd have said there was no way. In the past 6 months of my life, I've seen God's hand in different situations in our lives working and setting things in place for where He has us today. I've seen my husband go from dragging himself off to work each morning, going through the daily grind to bring home the bread for our household, and wondering when it was going to be his turn for the company man position to loving his job and looking forward to work with a smile every day! He's a new man, that company guy! I encourage you today, look back to where you came from and to where God has you now. I'm certain you'll see the hand of God along the way! Be encouraged! Keep praying! Keep seeking His answer! Stay in His will for your life for today! He's faithful!

I leave you today with this thought: "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."
~ Isaiah 55:11