Blessed

We are feeling incredibly blessed today.  This adoption process has been a journey of faith trusting God to provide every step of the way.  Due to some recent generous donations, we are 2/3 of the way to our financial goal.  This means that we have raised enough for the next amount due for adoption expenses and for the first trip (hopefully end of February / beginning of March)! So excited to see God's provision come when we least expected it.  We have another 4 or 5 months now to continue to raise the rest of the funds which will cover the final payments due for adoption expenses and take the second trip, hopefully sometime this summer.

I am not just speaking in cliches when I say this has been a journey of faith.  More times than I would like to admit I have suggested to Tony that perhaps we should apply our tithe money to this.  Surely this was as noble a spiritual application of funds as giving the money to the church, just to send it for missions overseas.  This was like our very own mission project.  I was always raised to tithe, and give it cheerfully, but also was raised in enough of a variety of church and para-church organizational structures to also have my own internal conflicts on what exactly counted as "God's storehouse" into which the money should go.  Did it have to be the church centralized, or could it just be giving 10% to ministry "stuff"?

But God has blessed me with a wonderful husband, who is a strong spiritual leader, and he stood firm that the tithe was to go to the church.  It isn't just about "doing good" with the funds.  It is about supporting the ministers and the ministry of the local church as the base for ministry of the body.  Now, I admit some days I am still conflicted about the meaning of tithe...not doubting or complaining about the 10% allocation, but more just wanting control of its application I suppose.   So this was the journey of faith ... we continued to tithe throughout this process.  With me worrying about the amount that could be going toward the adoption fund instead and wondering if we would have saved up enough money to go get our girl in the end.

But God himself knows the tithe can be a testing ground for people.  Did God not say, "Test me in this, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Malachi 3:10

So we have continued to tithe, and as Malachi states ... God has blessed.  Something I always knew to be true on paper, but through this journey, I now know to be true by heart.