Memorial Box Monday

Some weeks ago I was moved to participate in the 'Generous Life 90-day challenge' - to tithe for 90 days and see if God doesn't heap more blessings upon you than what you have given away. Payday was Friday. On Sunday I put my first tithe in the church offering plate.

Here you need a little background...
My husband has been a stay at home dad to our two young children since early 2009. Earlier this year, after a year of being home with her Dad, our youngest started pre-school and hubby started looking for a new job. He's been looking without success for 7 months. Money has been really tight for us with just one income. We sold our house and moved to a tiny duplex so we could live on just my salary. We cut back and cut out to stay within our smaller means. Adding a tithe to the monthly expenses was really a leap of faith. But felt God nudging me to trust Him. And so, back to the story....

So on Sunday I put my tithe in the offering plate. On Tuesday my husband received a job offer. God multiplied my tithe more than I can even calculate! I gave God my meager tithe and God gave us a 100% new salary where there had been zero. How incredible is that?! In just TWO DAYS God poured out generosity upon us. Our God is an awesome God!

Memorial Box Monday

A few weeks ago I followed a link from a link from a blog I read regularly and discovered A Place Called Simplicity. Since then, Linny has been such an inspiration. At the same time that I was discovering Linny's testimony, I was in the middle of both the Love Dare and the 40 day Spiritual Journey to a more generous life. God was working in amazing ways in my life! I found people living and blogging about God's generosity at the same time that I was reading his word as expressed through these two studies. But there's more.

While all of this was happening, God kept putting little signs up all over the place that seemed to be telling us we were not done with the journey to an adoption in China like we thought we were. Back in 2006 we submitted a dossier for a NSN adoption in China, expecting to travel in early 2007 to a new daughter. While we waited I made a baby quilt, with a map of China on it. In 2008, the wait stretching from months to years and years, we withdrew our dossier from China when we adopted from Taiwan for a second time. We believed at the time that the door to China had been closed for us. All this time my China quilt has waited on a shelf above the sheets and towels. Back in August I tried to get in touch with a woman I'd met during the wait, who was finally traveling to China for her daughter. I thought I'd give her the quilt. But I never heard back from her. I tried again in October to reach her, but still no response. Earlier this month I was lamenting the fact that I hadn't heard back. The quilt still sat in our closet and I was so eager to send it along. Out of nowhere my husband said, "Maybe it's not supposed to go to her." I looked at him, surprised, and instantly, without either of us having to say another word, realized we were at that moment both hearing the same thing from our amazing God - that quilt is for our daughter who is in China.

Not too many days later I found her on a waiting child list. We sent off an email of inquiry just before midnight on a Friday night. And with that, doors started to open. So many things have happened in the last two weeks that I could fill a year of Memorial Box Mondays, but I'll save them for another post. To God be the glory!