All Supplied

But my God shall supply all your need

according to his riches in glory

by Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:19

I’m learning more and more about faith each day. God is so good, even when it seems like things are not going quite the way we want them to. This last week is a perfect example of God working in our lives through the good and seemingly bad. It’s a long story… so just sit tight.

Sunday morning started for me at 1am with terrible pain in my jaw. To those of you who know me, you can see why this was concerning. To those of you who don’t know me… I don’t feel pain quite like most people… If it hurts me, it’s usually pretty bad. And this pain was bad - ranking up there in the top three most painful things I have ever endured.

Anyhow, to make a long story short, I ended up in the ER because of it, thinking it was an abscessed tooth, which is dangerous when you are pregnant. Turns out… it wasn’t. My teeth all looked fine to the ER doctor (except for the fact that many of them are badly broken, but not anything to cause the pain I was in.) So he thought maybe it was an ear infection, but that checked out as well. My ears were inflamed, but not infected… again, nothing to cause the pain I was in. So they sent me home with a prescription for antibiotics just in case and instructions to call both my dentist and my doctor.

I went in to the doctor’s on Monday – she again checked my ears and my teeth… nothing. She guessed that maybe it was TMJ (basically any sort of jaw pain in the joints falls into this category) but even that wouldn’t explain the sudden onset of pain, again… no resolutions.

As you can imagine… this is all frustrating for me. I don’t like not knowing what is going on or not being able to do something about it. So I called the dentist… something I had been avoiding doing because of what it would cost – I knew I needed at least two teeth pulled on one side and one more on another. (Wisdom teeth… YUCK!) But finally I called him… knowing he would work with us on the payments, but still dreading going more into debt. (We’ve been learning so much about what the Bible has to say on debt and we have been trying to get back into a place where we have a chance to be good stewards of the gifts God gives us) We set up an appointment and headed off to Farmington to get teeth pulled.

I went into the appointment still not knowing what had cause the pain (which by the way, subsided on it’s own Monday afternoon) but thankful that it had given me the push to get my teeth pulled because I knew it was something I really needed done. But I was still apprehensive about the cost and about going into debt. X-rays done, teeth pulled (Praise God! It took 5 minutes to pull two teeth, one of which was a firmly anchored wisdom tooth!) and not in any pain, I asked to set up a payment plan. And then I got to see God step in…

The dentist said there was no charge and that we had done so much for him – which really wasn’t that much… some cleaning and some repairs to get his house on the market last fall, which was in trade for the dental work done then. I thanked him, and he set up another appointment for me. Then God stepped in again.

I mentioned that Eric needed some dental work done at some point, a tooth with an exposed nerve… and the dentist fit him in right then and got the tooth pulled. There was another appointment made for Eric as well, and the dentist said he wants to go ahead and fix all of Eric’s teeth as well as mine… no charge.

God provided each of these things that were needed in our lives.

 We have been praying, not for the money to get our teeth fixed, because we knew that any money we got would go toward existing debts, but for relief from the pain caused by our teeth. He met the need… plain and simple. No teeth = no pain, and it didn’t cost us anything more than gas to get there.

We have been praying for God to help us be good stewards and to help us get out of debt so that we can start fresh, and as we faced the necessity of dental work for the safety of the baby and myself, He answered our prayer and provided the dental work, free of charge. He kept us from going into more debt.

We have been praying to see God working in our lives and that He would use us to work in the lives of others. You can all see how He is working in our lives, and we got to see Him using us in the life of another, and that our prayers for others are important.

God answers our prayers. Sometime we can’t see that it is an answer until after we have taken that step out in faith and seen Him work. Sometimes we don’t know how something is an answer or how God will use it, but we can trust that no matter what, God is listening to our prayers, He knows our needs and He is faithful to provide for everything we need without asking us to compromise… trust Him, yes… compromise… never.

As I look back at the beginning of this week, I still don’t understand why I was in so much pain nor why we could not find an answer to it, but I do know that God promises … that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 And I know that I get to see God at work in my life and in the life of others through circumstances that may seem less than ideal. 

Trust God… He’ll never let you down.