Living Water

Lately “water” has been one of the words God keeps bringing to mind.  I am encountering water everywhere and today once, again in an unusual way.

We had a water bill due which Shamus paid over the phone using our home equity loan, because it needed paid now and we didn’t want to take our bank account down to nothing which might start the bouncing.   Now we have been having an odd problem.  We have been unable to access a lot of our accounts (bills and bank hough we can pay bills through our bank–totally convoluted and for no obvious reason.)  We do believe a lot of it is that we are not supposed to be worrying over money, which is understandable since  every time I look at our nearly empty account I get nervous (as does Shamus) and we know that worrying is not God’s way and that He has been providing every step of the way.  So, we have pretty much been letting it slide and not trying to force the online accounts to work.

That said, I found a 10 day shut off letter that I hadn’t opened and wasn’t sure if it had come before or after we had attempted to pay via phone, and since we couldn’t login to the home equity to see if it had gone through I figured I better call the water company to see where we stood.  Last night I had no peace about calling and this morning I did, so I did. 🙂

I got a lovely woman whom I had a hard time hearing (I have a very hard time talking on the phone, especially when there are kids in the room or other noises in the background– my brain doesn’t discern between sounds very well and unraveling sounds is tricky for me.)  After figuring out that the payment did indeed go through and we just owe for this month (and therefore are not about to be shut off) she asked if I wanted to update income.  It took me a while to figure out that she meant we could go in the system in a way that meant if we are having trouble paying they can give us a payment plan instead of shutting us off– yes please?  (We got shut off the week Mom died because Shamus’ company cut him to part time as of that week and with that and running too and fro to the hospital and then funeral and all that mess and a case of paying the wrong bill– we have several that start with PA and then letters and sometimes things get mixed up– the water bill was forgotten and made for even more stress and mess.)

The funny part came when she asked about our income.  I had to explain that we both now work only on commission and would have plenty to live on if we would just get paid what we are owed but several checks (including one for 9 months worth of work) are not forthcoming so basically we are living on what I make (which comes to about $200 a month give or take) and what people give us.  She was amazed (especially after I said we were not doing unemployment, food stamps, etc.) and  said something about my wonderful attitude.  Of course I couldn’t claim that at all and pointed out that it’s not me, God is the one providing and who am I to complain.  She was so excited, said she was going to say similar but had to be careful because of her work situation and then went on to say what an encouragement we were and immediately added us to her prayer list, saying she would pray right away so she didn’t forget.

So again God stepped in and used something I saw as an inconvenience and stress as a way to bless another and to encourage us yet again.  Not to mention getting us into a place where our water is not going to get turned off and that we don’t have to pay them more money right now because the payment did go through(which means the gift of money we got yesterday can go to pay other things that need paid!  YAH!)

I have to keep reminding myself that those things that make me uncomfortable, the little irritants, inconveniences, and things that I naturally stress over, God plans and uses for good.