I want to give glory to God by expounding to you the riches of His grace toward my family, not only to tell you more of His bountiful, beneficent love, but to remind me of it in the future when I am tempted to doubt His care.
1. God gave me an incredibly talented husband who has a heart for serving others and receives joy in his work as a result of the service he is allowed to give.
2. He provided the means for our education, and gave me a job so I could work to help my husband finish his schooling.
3. He provided us with the resource through the church of the NAD education listings (think of all the unemployed persons who have to pound pavement all day long searching for jobs, when we have the job listings handed to us and only have to decide to apply!)
4. Even though Steven does not have his teaching endorsements, God gave him the forethought to include most of the required classes for denominational certification in his class load at Walla Walla University, so there are few classes left to him before he is certified.
5. When Steven applied for jobs at schools, they considered him in spite of his lack of certification.
6. God opened the hearts of the hiring committee at Highland Academy to look at Steven's work experience and skills rather than his lack: education classes and teaching experience. He gave them the faith to move forward and fly Steven in for an interview.
7. He gave us the job! It perfectly fits Steven's skill set and will be an excellent entry to the Adventist education system. He will be teaching upper-level math (Algebra 2 and Pre-Calculus), Physics, and Microsoft Office, in addition to overseeing Information Services. He is a computer whiz, and majored in mathematics (which requires physics classes as well). These are all the things he loves to do, and the school has a small student body so he will be able to start out with smaller classes. The school will pay for the remainder of his education so he will be a certified teacher within 3 years.
There are so many more things I could include! As I think of the process to where we are now, from taking a job as task force workers (read: slaves) that has been very stressful in many ways, to applying for jobs that turned out to be dead ends, causing us to have to wait for more jobs to open up, I can see His hand at work and rejoice in His grace to us. If we had not been task force workers this year, Steven would not have met some key people for references, and my first year of mothering would have been much more difficult (I have all four of my son's grandparents within a 3-minute walk of home).
Now we are on the final leg of this journey toward our new home in Portland, TN, and it has many parts we will need His help to accomplish:
1. We need to get packed!
2. We need to have a yard sale to get rid of some excess stuff that we've been dragging around for too long.
3. We need a home to move into. We have made an offer on a house (a modular home on 2.42 acres that is about 1.5 miles from the school), but we are waiting to hear from the bank moderating its sale that our offer is approved. Please pray that God will make His will known in this area by opening or closing doors as he sees fit.
John 1:16. From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.
I pray that you all receive His blessings of grace in your lives today.
