He Provides

Soooo . . . I mentioned before how I misunderstood that we couldn't stay at a "basic" level in karate indefinitely. Turns out, we have to switch to black belt training or stop attending karate. All four kids in the same sport at the same time and all enjoying it is just too good of a thing to give up so easily . . . so, we asked the club owner if we could "borrow" the sparring gear required for the next level. "Yes!" (mixing and matching from their donated boxes with some gear my mom handed down from my brothers, we only had to purchase two face shields . . . savings of $800!) Now the kids just can't grow and need new sizes :)

A couple weeks ago, Buck had to drive to his old store to help run inventory. Unfortunately, the first middle of the night trip was a bust, as the computer systems went down nationwide. So, he "got to" make the drive a second time (in the middle of the night again) to complete the process. Now, this was a hassle, and not much fun for me worrying about him, everyone was sick, and he was up all night instead of getting the rest he needed. Major headache, right?

Well, God really surprised us and used this to our benefit. Both times, there and back, Buck got mileage. Gas is ridiculously cheap right now, and because he didn't get a hotel or eat out, he ended up "ahead" quite a bit on the mileage refund check. This covered more than half of what we needed to get the kids' weapons for their next belt level purchased! So rather than figuring out how to pay this bill more and this bill less to squeeze in the payment for all that karate stuff (x4!), God provided.

Now, this may not be how Buck wanted to spend his nice "surprise" check, but I'm sure something good will come along or from it to make his double sacrifice worthwhile :)