We are broke.

And I’m not just talking treading water broke, I’m talking under water, drowning, not even gasping for air because there isn’t any air, broke.

Our bills this week amount to about three times the size of our paycheck.

And that is after getting help for rent and food and scrimping and cutting everywhere we can scrimp and cut.

Add to that my husbands shoes are getting the soles worn clean off, and my daughter is growing out of her clothes.

It feels strange to be that real here. And humiliating to admit how bad it is.

We are broke.

And I’ve no idea what to do.

It’s easy to say that God is good when things are good.

It’s easy to say that God provides when there is provision.

But can I do it here? Now?

Here? Where I feel like I can’t breathe for the pressure?

Now? When I am about to break down in tears thinking of my daughters clothes?

Can I do it?

We need only open our eyes to see God’s fingerprints all over our lives.

We need only look to see His provision.

But sometimes you have to look harder than others.

And sometimes it takes a good dose of humility.

Because I want to say we can do it ourselves.

But we can’t.

And I want to say that we don’t need help.

But we do.

And the thing is, we always need that help. We always need His help. It’s just that at times it is more obvious than others.

God has always provided for us. He may not have always provided all that I wanted, but He’s always provided everything we need.

Sometimes that has meant He provided a second car, just months before our first car broke down. I might whine about not having two cars. Or I can marvel how He provided a car before we knew we’d need it.

Or it may have meant a bag of second hand toddler clothes from a neighbor left on our doorstep.

Or it may have meant parents and grandparents willing to share their overflow, even seeing extra provision as an opportunity to help provide for us in our difficult places.

His provision has meant guiding my mom to help find us the perfect apartment just weeks before we got married. An apartment in a good neighborhood that happens to be low income and that I have thanked Him for again and again, knowing it is the only reason we have a place to live.

His provision has meant an extra check from my husbands student loan, just in time to get our daughter a new car seat.

I can see His provision all over our lives if I look.

But right now it is hard to see. Hard to trust. Why is that?

No matter how many times He’s proven Himself to us, why is it that in those moments when the need is felt and the provision not yet seen, why is it so hard to trust?

So today I choose to trust.

I choose to place before Him our bills, our needs, my daughters clothes, my husbands shoes.

I choose to let go of it. Of my pride that doesn’t want to admit that I can’t buy all the things others around me can.

But at the same time I choose to remember.

I choose to remember that I am rich. I am rich in love and grace and the beauty of life.

I don’t know what we are going to do. But He does.

I choose to rest in that.

I choose to rest in Him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Joy Aletheia Stevens