A smarter year

4:02 p.m. Today's project was to orgaize my business supplies for a facial party tomorrow night, toouch base with a customer about the order she will be picking up, and do some "holy follow-up!"

I phrase it that way because last night at Home Fellowship, the group prayed for me to put more time and work into my Mary Kay business, now that our income is so strictly fixed, and Steve will need more hours of care for me to do that. We have been blessed with our caregiver from Brightstar, a believer who is a very nice companion for Steve when I can't be at home, whether for ministry or business. God has truly supplied that need and honored the planning we did years ago to finance it. Even though I closed out 2010 a little shaky and nervous about finances, I MUST remember instances of Philippians 4:19 in the last 30 years of my life, that God will supply all my needs from His glorious riches in Christ Jesus!

And in my journal this morning, after confessing my faith failures of last winter, I asked the Lord to help me make constructive use of the hours I have to ply my trade. While we as God's children can expect our Father to mobilize all of the forces in His hands to sustain us, we ablebodied and Spirit-filled adults aren't like baby birds who wait helplessly with our mouths open! We have a part to play in supporting our households, as many of the Proverbs tell us.

I need to get smarter now with finances, pure and simple! There is a difference between being content with God's provision while enhancing the opportunities He provides, a la the wise servants who invested the coins the master gave them to make a profit, and the lazy one who let fear control him and was punished for doing nothing (Matthew 25:14-30). God commends effort and stewardship of all gifts He gives, whether skills or material belongings.

The first confirmation of a new direction came from an appointment this afternoon with a life insurance agent who had called last week to review our policies. I wasn't expecting much, but he pointed out the soundness of one we have on Steve; showed how a small tax-sheltered annuity could be better invested; and will be able to save me $200+ a month by consolidating two life insurance policies of mine into one! Looks like I'll have a yucky blood draw and exam one morning this week, but that's a small sacrifice to make. As a side note, his wife's Mary Kay lady left the country, so he happily took a catalog and a sample out the door with him! Thank you, Lord!

Now it was time to do a little tax prep. I took Steve with me to CVS pharmacy to get printiouts of all of our prescriptions and co-pays for 2010. We both had to be there with our driver's licenses in hand. The packet with 10 entries to a page, showing the co-pays of medications Steve is on, is almost 1/2 " thick! Mine is a few pages, but they will be added together, and hopefully will make the % threshold for deductibility. I'll be adding in office visit co-pays and chiropractor visits, too.

I dropped Steve off at home and headed down to the Towne Center to my bank for a printout to track insurance premium deductions, and then over to Ralphs to take a catalog to a checker/ supervisor who'd asked for one yesterday. I thought, "This will be awkward, because I don't know her hname, will have to describe her to someone and leave it at the customer service desk for her, blah blah, worry, blah, blah..." As I pulled up right at the front door, no less, there she was, sitting out in front of the store on break, eating her lunch! She was very excited to get the catalog, too. Isn't God amazing? Only God could have orchestrated the timing to and from the drugstore, back home, out again to the bank and then over to the grocery store. But my 1% was important, too. I had to overcome my doubts and prepare my literature to give out.

You can't beat having a business Partner who arranges the scenarios, instructs me in my part of the effort, and strengthens me to carry it out! And He also gave the customer her joy in anticipating a purchase that will meet her needs. Unbelievable, just unbelievable!

"Is anything too hard for the LORD?" God asks elderly Abraham after announcing that he and Sarah would have a son the following year.

The answer is NO! And as I ask in faith for supernatural wisdom and diligence from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no shadow of turning (James 1:17b) I have the assurance that all good and perfect things come from Him (v.17a) and that He will give wisdom to me liberally and without rebuke. (James 1:5,6)

It's looking like a smarter year already!