Faith: God provides for needs

At some point in my early days of high school, I created a bucket list of aspirations for my life. Among the many items on my list are goals such as “fall in love, get married, make a true friend, sky dive, have a kid”. And then, there is “be poor”.

I can still see my pious little high school freshman self contemplating the idea.

“To experience poverty will truly set me apart,” I thought. “I will learn to be humble through my poverty, and in turn, it will make me strong. Besides, at some point in life, surely I will be poor, so I might as well have a box to check."

What I didn’t foresee at that moment was that poverty was coming my way sooner rather than later. The decision to marry as a college student, although it has been rewarding in ways, is not extremely easy on the pocketbook. And honestly, poverty isn’t all that I had originally imagined. In some backwards way, I believed that my poor college kid days would be “the good old days,” and perhaps they will, but I neglected to realize that I would have to live through them first.

And yet, if I can say this without continuing my original piety, in my first month and a half of poverty, I have seen more blessings than I can count. Every little detail has worked itself out in accordance to some wonderful, unconceivable master plan, and through that, I have seen the hand of God.

There have been times that we my husband, Ryan, and I needed something, and it was provided within hours. Other times, we have seen little blessings through events as silly as bingo night where we won a free gift card to Applebee’s. This provides date nights that we would otherwise have been unable to fund.

When we are cutting finances close, there always seems to be an extra job lying around for more pay than either of us would have ever requested. Even down to the fact that Ryan was able to work his higher paying job at KU up until the very day that school started in order to get a solid 40 hours a week during the summer was a miracle.

The money that we received for our wedding completely paid for our honeymoon with just a bit left over to cover school supplies. Every wedding gift return that we have made as a result of duplicate items has been

nearly the exact amount needed for household necessities that we didn’t realize that we had originally overlooked.

Actually, as it is, poverty is beautiful because it allows the hand of God to be much clearer. When I was living under my parents’ roof, I never saw the financial blessings that God provided. Now that I’m the one keeping track of the money, I have seen more blessings than I think I have ever noticed in my life.

Matthew 6:31-34 says, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Before becoming poor, I never fully understood the value of this passage. I wondered why I would possibly worry about all of these things—my parents provided them for me. Now, I understand.

In direct contrast of my original thought that poverty would make me stronger, I have realized that it really makes me neither stronger nor weaker. Instead, it just illuminates my limitations. There is a limit to how many hours I can work in a week and still attend class. There is a limit to my energy and my time, and unfortunately to how much money12