Great news!

Hi!!
So, it's 5:46 AM. Everyone in my house is sleeping, but i can't sleep because i'm too excited.
Right around the 2nd week in January, Kris and i were seriously discussing what we were going to do in the summer about our living situation. We were fairly certain that we would be foreclosed. We just couldn't afford to live where we do. Our mortgage payments were high and we were always late with them. i think 10 of the last 12 months we were late at least a few weeks. Add townhouse association fees and utilities, and it gets expensive, especially because Kris' job opening hasn't opened yet. It was pretty bleak. We were getting 8+ collections calls a day from 4 different places. We just were slogging along, never knowing how much money would come in from Kris' serving tips, and ignoring the phone.
So i prayed. Jesus and i have this thing, where i'll pray for money to come from someplace unexpected that we won't have to pay back, and then 1-2 days later, we'll get money from someplace unexpected we won't have to pay back. The cool thing is, wherever the money comes from? Had been set in motion before i prayed about it.
i prayed around the 10th of January, i believe. And then i waited. 2 weeks later, nothing. And i was all like, "Um, Jesus? Um, yah, didn't we have an understanding here? You send money when i pray?" So here's what happened within the last two weeks, in chronological order.

• My friend Liz's husband got a job. They needed childcare for their daughter 3 days/week: would i like to watch her? And a little less than doubled my income along with what i get paid from church. Now i will actually get a normal person's salary, while being able to stay home with my kids during the week. i start this week, yay! (Thanks for the opportunity Liz!)
  
• Here's my favorite of these bullet points. A few days after i agreed to start watching Mallory, like around January 30, Kris opened some mail from the mortgage company. We don't open mail from the mortgage company, because it usually says things like "You are 2 months behind. Send us $2400 within the next two weeks or we will start foreclosure proceedings." You can understand why we don't open them, right? So Kris opened up a letter from the mortgage company. And it said something to the effect of "Hey buddy! We figure you're having a rough time. You're a little over a month behind, and your credit sucks, so there's no way you can apply to refinance. So how about you pay us $900, and we will cut your mortgage payments by $300+month, and lower your interest by 2% for the life of your loan? Also, if you pay us $900, you will be current, and the money you were behind on paying us, we'll just add to the end of your loan. Does that sound good?" !!!! That is amazing! We can afford to live here now. But the thing is, the letter was sent on January 9. i originally prayed January 10th. Jesus had come through for us, but we just didn't open our mail!
• Then last night, we did our taxes. We used Turbo Tax this time, instead of like last year when 1/2 of our refund went to H&R Block for their fees. Kris and i weren't sub contractors at any of our main jobs this year, and we had a baby, and also got a stimulus rebate for her. (By the way, if you want to use Turbo Tax, which i strongly recommend, if you have a Circuit City near you that is not closed yet, go there to buy your software. They went bankrupt and are selling everything crazy cheap. We got the $60 Turbo Tax software for $44.) So we knew our refund would be better than last year. Well, it was 2 months of mortgage payments, including both mortgages! (We have a big mortgage and a small mortgage: an 80/20, i think it's called.) We are going to set aside our refund and use it only for paying mortgage for the next two months. Then, as money comes in, we are going to get current with all our other things that got pushed aside while we were scrambling to make mortgage payments.  i think the next 2 weeks or so Kris will be able to make enough money to get current on everything.
  

You guys, i will be able to answer the phone again.
After all is said and done, if you add the extra money i'll be making, the money we don't have to pay on our mortgage, and divide our refund by 12 months, we are now $1350 more comfortable every month. All within the last 2 weeks. All of this had been in place before i prayed for it. We'll be making enough money to cover our expenses for the first time since...well i don't know if we ever did. i haven't done the math yet, but i think we will be bringing in even more than our expenses. We will hopefully be able to start paying more than minimum payments on credit cards, and then saving money. Like for our future. Like grownups.
You should see Kris. He looks lighter. i've never seen him look so happy or relaxed. i've never felt so relaxed, either. We have so much debt, you guys. We had numbed ourselves to it, just doing the best we could, and hoping it would get better. And things would happen that were absolutely amazing, but not quite enough to push us over the edge into being able to pay all of our expenses.
There's this song that they played a lot in this church i went to growing up that runs through my head a lot. It is quickly becoming my favorite song ever, surely the most relevant to my life. If you want to hear it, here's the best version i could find on youtube, of like 3. But here are the words, emphasis mine
:

I'm Forever Grateful

You did not wait for me to draw near to You
But You clothed Yourself with frail humanity
You did not wait for me to cry out to You
But You let me hear Your voice calling me

And I'm forever grateful to You
I'm forever grateful for the cross
I'm forever grateful to You
That You came
To seek and save the lost

By Mark Altrogge
copyright 1985 PDI Praise

i hope you all have a blessed day. And week. And year. God's peace be with you.