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Sherri King @ Mar 3, 2008 08:34 PM
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You Can Not Afford “NOT” To Tithe!
By Linda Bennett
After years of walking with the Lord I was challenged in the early months of 2002 to start tithing faithfully, 10% of my gross income. It was quite a challenge for me to do because at the time, due to a corporate restructure I had lost my job a couple of months earlier and was on unemployment. On May 27th 2002, I had plans to go my step-sisters home for a BBQ with my family. Within a ½ hour of arriving at my sister’s home I was enjoying watching my nieces and nephews fishing in the lake and playing around the yard. The last thing I remember about that time of the day was talking with my Aunt Jo Ann. The next thing I remember was being in the Emergency room of Genesys Hospital. Where my older brother Tom and my older sister Sue were talking to a Physician over my bed, Tom and Sue were assuring him that I hadn't taken drugs or drank alcoholic beverages for over 15 years. From my perspective it took me a few minutes to realize that something terrible had happened to me. The few details I remember of that afternoon included not feeling well, being attached to several machines, being on oxygen, having IV’s and having to go for a CT Scan. I also remember my Father coming in with tears in his eyes, and telling me that he was the one who should die first.
From my families perspective they to were enjoying a great day when all of the sudden they noticed that I was not paying attention like starring off into space, then my body stiffened up and my face began to turn blue and then purple. There first thoughts were that I was choking and then that I was having a heart attack. They called for an ambulance immediately and tried to due mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but my mouth would not open. When the ambulance arrived a few minutes later the paramedics reassured my family that I was breathing but that I was just unconscious.
I wound up being admitted to Genesys where my bed was padded and I was told I couldn’t get out of bed without any assistance. The medicine I was now on made me feel terrible. Apparently what had happened was that I had a Grand Mal Seizure. The Doctors were unsure as to why I had the seizure so they wanted to observe me for a few days.
I immediately started to pray for God to interceded and asking Him how in the world was I going to get through this. I was already on unemployment and looking for a job. Since I was now in the hospital I was unable to accept unemployment insurance because you must be able to work to do so. I also did not have medical insurance, and knew that the hospital bill would be in the thousands of dollars. I had no idea how I was going to make ends meet.
The following day after the Grand Mal Seizure I had a visit from a Neurologist who was assigned to me. Without introducing himself or telling me any other information he announced to me that I could not drive for six months then he left my room. Already not felling feeling well and overwhelmed with burden I wasn’t quite sure what to do with this information. I found out later that there is a Michigan State law, which prohibits those who have seizures from driving for six months. All kinds of thoughts went though my head again of how in the world was I going to make it no job, no money, and unable to drive.
Right away the Lord started working by using my family and my friends to assist me. One of my best friends Linda who is an RN knew there where programs certain hospitals had to help people who didn’t have insurance to assist in lowering the cost of their bills, she actually filled out the form for me, held my hand as I signed it and then turned it in for me.
The Doctors never found out why I had the seizure, I was released 5 days later into my sisters care; my family already made plans for me to stay at my Sisters for at least 2 weeks so that I could have constant supervision. This was a great challenge because I was always one able to care for myself and now I had to relay on others.
Within a couple of weeks I was able to move around although not my normal self because of the medicine my body was adjusting to; I tried to do all I could to care for myself. The Lord also led my home church which at that time was the Linden Free Methodist Church to take an offering on my behalf. The offering covered not only my rent for June but also my car payment. A few days later, The Deeper Life Retreat Committee for which I chaired at the time took and offering for me, which helped me to cover all of the other bills for my household for that first month. Right away out of thanksgiving to the Lord I tithed on all the monetary gifts I received. I was awestruck at how God had provided for me. People from all over started to send me encouragement cards, within every card their was a monetary gift enclosed, some had big checks some had a $5 dollar bill, but God used every bit of what people where giving and I was able to pay my monthly bills, which included my rent, car payment, consumer’s power, Phone bill and my credit card debt bill that I had been working on for over 3 years.
One of the first follow up Dr. appointments I had was with the Neurologist who never introduced himself just told me I couldn’t drive. A friend took me to the appointment. When he came into the room the first thing he said as he was looking at my chart, noticing I didn’t have insurance was, “This is one of those I won’t get paid for!” I looked at my friend Judy Shinabarger who had driven me to the appointment and I wanted to cry. BUT, God had a plan for that as well. Within a week I received his bill for $750.00. A week after that God had provided for me to pay that bill through people sending me money. I was so tickled. I couldn’t wait to send him the money. I wrote a letter pouring out my disappointment to him as a doctor for first hurting me the way that he did in relating the news that I couldn’t drive; then to assume that he wouldn’t get paid the way that he did. It was a huge letter; I was looking so forward to sending. I called one of my best friends Lorrie to share my joy with her. After reading the letter to her she asked me a question, “What are you trying to tell him?’, I answered, “ I am trying to tell him God is good and that he provids”. She responded that’s the last sentence and he’ll never get that far in reading such a harsh letter. She was right. I was grateful for the delete button. I wound up sending him a 3 sentence letter pointing to God. I was so grateful God had provided again not only for the monetary need put also for a wise friend who knew I wanted to honor God.
I started to receive bills from having the siezure. BIG BILLS! I tried hard not to panic but as the bills started to pile up it became more difficult and I was overwhelmed. I called my friend Linda to come over and help me pray over the bills and she agreed to. When she came over she said that the Lord had asked her to pay them for me. The bills totaled around $1400.00. Again I was awestruck. Still being nervous about the big hospital bill I had not yet received; I called Genesys Hospital and talked to a lady in the charity department; she said they had no record of my application. She asked me if there were anyway that I could come to the hospital and meet with her. After making arrangements with my sister for transportation, we went to the hospital and met with this Lady who started to ask a few questions and then said she would get back with me after she talked to her boss. A few days later she called me and told me the bill had been taken care of. I said that is great, just let me now how much more I owe and I will start making payments. She said, “Linda the bill is paid in full, you don’t owe anything!” I guess it was to good to be true for me to believe the first time she told me. About a week later I received a letter in the mail that stated that the amount that the charity was able to cover and the amount that I stilled owe. At that time, I said, “Here it is, I knew it was to good to be true. I pulled out an enclosed sheet and it stated how much the charity covered and then how much more I owed, I owed $0. The hospital bill was enclosed; the charity had covered $6460.60.
God continued to provide by peoples gifts or by providing odd jobs that I was able to do such as watching houses/pets and even had a couple opportunities to stay with teenagers as there parents needed to go away for a weekend or few days. No matter how much money I made I always tithed on the money that God paid me through these jobs. It was amazing to me how God was never late on providing the money for me to pay any of the bills that were due.
Although I was not able to drive God provided again and again as people would call and ask if I could come and help them. I would remind them that I was unable to drive and their coming to pick me up was never a big deal. Even when I needed to go somewhere such as a Doctor’s appointment or other places God would provide for me to have transportation.
I had many set backs as I continued to have seizures. Every time I had a seizure my medicine dosage needed to be increased and every time that happened I felt like I was back in the hospital as my body needed to adjust to the increased dosage. Also, every time I had a seizure I had to count 6 months from that date before I could plan to drive again, seizure free for six months was the State Law. Through those months of waiting and recovering God continued to provide for me. Friends would tell me how encouraged they were because of how they could see God working in my life.
I continued to get odd jobs on and off and God continued to provide by having people send me gifts all for which I continued to tithe on.
On April 15, 2003, my rent was due at 5:00 pm and I had no money. I was trying hard to be calm and was failing miserably at it so I decided to call a friend to help me pray through the day. I told my friend Jackie that I needed her to pray about something with me but I didn’t want her to do anything about it such as pay the rent herself or tell anybody else about it. The two of us were going to trust God for it. She agreed and we prayed. Right before we hung up she said to me, “Linda I will look forward to your call”. Those words stayed with me throughout the morning and all afternoon as I looked forward to calling her and letting her know how God had provided to pay the rent. Every time the phone rang I thought here it is God is coming through but as the clock ticked closer to five nothing happened. I did have an appointment to start watching a house that afternoon and needed to take care of getting the rent paid before I was picked up.
At 3:30 pm my friend Tom arrived to pick me up and then I thought for sure that God had sent something in the mail and I should answer my mail before I left but nothing was in the mailbox. I started to ask myself all different kinds of questions and even reminded God of what a great job He had done in providing for me and that I needed his help again. Half way there Tom mentioned to me that his wife Berta had already left, one week earlier, but had left something on the counter for me. I asked him what and he said a check. I said do you know how much it is he said “no”. I couldn’t hold it in and told him the story that was going on. We both waited in anticipation to get to their home. When we arrived, I went to the counter, picked up the check and not only was it enough to cover my rent but also enough for me to tithe on first. Even Tom had tears in his eyes as I jumped for joy at how God had provided again. I have never kicked anyone out of their own house before but I was anxious to get him out of the door to the airport and as soon as he was gone called my friend Linda and told her I needed a ride to pay my rent because God had just provided for me. It was 4:58 pm when I walked into the place where I was supposed to pay my rent. God was not late. I had never had a monetary gift left for me before I actually watched someone’s home. Usually that was taken care of after they returned. God knew I needed it before then and remember Berta had left a week before and God prompted her then to leave a check. As you can imagine I couldn’t wait to call my friend Jackie for she had looked forward to my call that day, we praised the Lord then and continue to praise Him now for such a wonderful answer.
In May God provided for me in two wonderful ways. First I had friends who were having a big rummage sale and I was even able to help with it. After the rummage sale, all of my friends wanted me to have the money that was earned by having the sale. Then someone sent $500.00 to my old church. The treasurer from the church called me and said that the person donating it wanted me to use the money for my car payments. I again was in a joyful shock and did some figuring. I had enough to pay off my car debt of $712.00 totally with the money from the sale and from the gift. My car was now paid off, even though I couldn’t drive it. The person wanted to remain anonymous so I don’t know who did it but I was able to send them a thank you note through the Treasurer and then send thank you’s to all of the people who had put in for the rummage sale and let them all know how I used the money that God had provided by using them. I was just so amazed at what God was doing and how He was providing for me.
In June I again had a house-watching job but only for 3 days. When the lady returned she said that she wanted me to take the monetary gift she was giving me and use it towards my credit card debt, which she heard about through a friend that had been telling her of how God had been providing for me. She then handed me $1000.00. After tithing on the gift, I had enough money from what was in my checking account and the $900.00 to pay off my credit card debt, which was $1012.00 all together. I was so thankful to God and truly was shocked and so grateful for everything that He was doing for me. I took a look at my financial situation and come to discover that I was better off financially then I had ever been and I wasn't even working.
On July 21 I was able to drive again, it had been six months from my last seizure. It was kind of funny because when I did get all of the insurance and plates taken care of and was able to get in my car to go somewhere, I thought about it and truly had no place that I really needed to go.
Since that time even though I have been through a seizure disorder and a tragic car accident God has continued to provide for me. I am now working full time and I am in good health. Although I know I have failed sometimes, God has never failed me. In Malachi Chapter 4 it talks about how God challenges us to Tithe to him and see if He doesn’t provide for us. I have been faithfully tithing for 6 years and have never been without. My heavenly Father owns cattle on a thousand hills, He has slaughtered quite a few on my behalf. I want to challenge you to “TEST” God. He has so much to give you and He wants to bless you beyond what you can imagine. It doesn't matter how old you are if you receive an allowance from your Parents or a paycheck from your employer, I encourage you to tithe 10 % on your gross amount and see what God has in store for you. He will not fail you and you can not out give God and no matter how much your allowance or paycheck you can not afford “NOT” to tithe!
By Linda Bennett
After years of walking with the Lord I was challenged in the early months of 2002 to start tithing faithfully, 10% of my gross income. It was quite a challenge for me to do because at the time, due to a corporate restructure I had lost my job a couple of months earlier and was on unemployment. On May 27th 2002, I had plans to go my step-sisters home for a BBQ with my family. Within a ½ hour of arriving at my sister’s home I was enjoying watching my nieces and nephews fishing in the lake and playing around the yard. The last thing I remember about that time of the day was talking with my Aunt Jo Ann. The next thing I remember was being in the Emergency room of Genesys Hospital. Where my older brother Tom and my older sister Sue were talking to a Physician over my bed, Tom and Sue were assuring him that I hadn't taken drugs or drank alcoholic beverages for over 15 years. From my perspective it took me a few minutes to realize that something terrible had happened to me. The few details I remember of that afternoon included not feeling well, being attached to several machines, being on oxygen, having IV’s and having to go for a CT Scan. I also remember my Father coming in with tears in his eyes, and telling me that he was the one who should die first.
From my families perspective they to were enjoying a great day when all of the sudden they noticed that I was not paying attention like starring off into space, then my body stiffened up and my face began to turn blue and then purple. There first thoughts were that I was choking and then that I was having a heart attack. They called for an ambulance immediately and tried to due mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but my mouth would not open. When the ambulance arrived a few minutes later the paramedics reassured my family that I was breathing but that I was just unconscious.
I wound up being admitted to Genesys where my bed was padded and I was told I couldn’t get out of bed without any assistance. The medicine I was now on made me feel terrible. Apparently what had happened was that I had a Grand Mal Seizure. The Doctors were unsure as to why I had the seizure so they wanted to observe me for a few days.
I immediately started to pray for God to interceded and asking Him how in the world was I going to get through this. I was already on unemployment and looking for a job. Since I was now in the hospital I was unable to accept unemployment insurance because you must be able to work to do so. I also did not have medical insurance, and knew that the hospital bill would be in the thousands of dollars. I had no idea how I was going to make ends meet.
The following day after the Grand Mal Seizure I had a visit from a Neurologist who was assigned to me. Without introducing himself or telling me any other information he announced to me that I could not drive for six months then he left my room. Already not felling feeling well and overwhelmed with burden I wasn’t quite sure what to do with this information. I found out later that there is a Michigan State law, which prohibits those who have seizures from driving for six months. All kinds of thoughts went though my head again of how in the world was I going to make it no job, no money, and unable to drive.
Right away the Lord started working by using my family and my friends to assist me. One of my best friends Linda who is an RN knew there where programs certain hospitals had to help people who didn’t have insurance to assist in lowering the cost of their bills, she actually filled out the form for me, held my hand as I signed it and then turned it in for me.
The Doctors never found out why I had the seizure, I was released 5 days later into my sisters care; my family already made plans for me to stay at my Sisters for at least 2 weeks so that I could have constant supervision. This was a great challenge because I was always one able to care for myself and now I had to relay on others.
Within a couple of weeks I was able to move around although not my normal self because of the medicine my body was adjusting to; I tried to do all I could to care for myself. The Lord also led my home church which at that time was the Linden Free Methodist Church to take an offering on my behalf. The offering covered not only my rent for June but also my car payment. A few days later, The Deeper Life Retreat Committee for which I chaired at the time took and offering for me, which helped me to cover all of the other bills for my household for that first month. Right away out of thanksgiving to the Lord I tithed on all the monetary gifts I received. I was awestruck at how God had provided for me. People from all over started to send me encouragement cards, within every card their was a monetary gift enclosed, some had big checks some had a $5 dollar bill, but God used every bit of what people where giving and I was able to pay my monthly bills, which included my rent, car payment, consumer’s power, Phone bill and my credit card debt bill that I had been working on for over 3 years.
One of the first follow up Dr. appointments I had was with the Neurologist who never introduced himself just told me I couldn’t drive. A friend took me to the appointment. When he came into the room the first thing he said as he was looking at my chart, noticing I didn’t have insurance was, “This is one of those I won’t get paid for!” I looked at my friend Judy Shinabarger who had driven me to the appointment and I wanted to cry. BUT, God had a plan for that as well. Within a week I received his bill for $750.00. A week after that God had provided for me to pay that bill through people sending me money. I was so tickled. I couldn’t wait to send him the money. I wrote a letter pouring out my disappointment to him as a doctor for first hurting me the way that he did in relating the news that I couldn’t drive; then to assume that he wouldn’t get paid the way that he did. It was a huge letter; I was looking so forward to sending. I called one of my best friends Lorrie to share my joy with her. After reading the letter to her she asked me a question, “What are you trying to tell him?’, I answered, “ I am trying to tell him God is good and that he provids”. She responded that’s the last sentence and he’ll never get that far in reading such a harsh letter. She was right. I was grateful for the delete button. I wound up sending him a 3 sentence letter pointing to God. I was so grateful God had provided again not only for the monetary need put also for a wise friend who knew I wanted to honor God.
I started to receive bills from having the siezure. BIG BILLS! I tried hard not to panic but as the bills started to pile up it became more difficult and I was overwhelmed. I called my friend Linda to come over and help me pray over the bills and she agreed to. When she came over she said that the Lord had asked her to pay them for me. The bills totaled around $1400.00. Again I was awestruck. Still being nervous about the big hospital bill I had not yet received; I called Genesys Hospital and talked to a lady in the charity department; she said they had no record of my application. She asked me if there were anyway that I could come to the hospital and meet with her. After making arrangements with my sister for transportation, we went to the hospital and met with this Lady who started to ask a few questions and then said she would get back with me after she talked to her boss. A few days later she called me and told me the bill had been taken care of. I said that is great, just let me now how much more I owe and I will start making payments. She said, “Linda the bill is paid in full, you don’t owe anything!” I guess it was to good to be true for me to believe the first time she told me. About a week later I received a letter in the mail that stated that the amount that the charity was able to cover and the amount that I stilled owe. At that time, I said, “Here it is, I knew it was to good to be true. I pulled out an enclosed sheet and it stated how much the charity covered and then how much more I owed, I owed $0. The hospital bill was enclosed; the charity had covered $6460.60.
God continued to provide by peoples gifts or by providing odd jobs that I was able to do such as watching houses/pets and even had a couple opportunities to stay with teenagers as there parents needed to go away for a weekend or few days. No matter how much money I made I always tithed on the money that God paid me through these jobs. It was amazing to me how God was never late on providing the money for me to pay any of the bills that were due.
Although I was not able to drive God provided again and again as people would call and ask if I could come and help them. I would remind them that I was unable to drive and their coming to pick me up was never a big deal. Even when I needed to go somewhere such as a Doctor’s appointment or other places God would provide for me to have transportation.
I had many set backs as I continued to have seizures. Every time I had a seizure my medicine dosage needed to be increased and every time that happened I felt like I was back in the hospital as my body needed to adjust to the increased dosage. Also, every time I had a seizure I had to count 6 months from that date before I could plan to drive again, seizure free for six months was the State Law. Through those months of waiting and recovering God continued to provide for me. Friends would tell me how encouraged they were because of how they could see God working in my life.
I continued to get odd jobs on and off and God continued to provide by having people send me gifts all for which I continued to tithe on.
On April 15, 2003, my rent was due at 5:00 pm and I had no money. I was trying hard to be calm and was failing miserably at it so I decided to call a friend to help me pray through the day. I told my friend Jackie that I needed her to pray about something with me but I didn’t want her to do anything about it such as pay the rent herself or tell anybody else about it. The two of us were going to trust God for it. She agreed and we prayed. Right before we hung up she said to me, “Linda I will look forward to your call”. Those words stayed with me throughout the morning and all afternoon as I looked forward to calling her and letting her know how God had provided to pay the rent. Every time the phone rang I thought here it is God is coming through but as the clock ticked closer to five nothing happened. I did have an appointment to start watching a house that afternoon and needed to take care of getting the rent paid before I was picked up.
At 3:30 pm my friend Tom arrived to pick me up and then I thought for sure that God had sent something in the mail and I should answer my mail before I left but nothing was in the mailbox. I started to ask myself all different kinds of questions and even reminded God of what a great job He had done in providing for me and that I needed his help again. Half way there Tom mentioned to me that his wife Berta had already left, one week earlier, but had left something on the counter for me. I asked him what and he said a check. I said do you know how much it is he said “no”. I couldn’t hold it in and told him the story that was going on. We both waited in anticipation to get to their home. When we arrived, I went to the counter, picked up the check and not only was it enough to cover my rent but also enough for me to tithe on first. Even Tom had tears in his eyes as I jumped for joy at how God had provided again. I have never kicked anyone out of their own house before but I was anxious to get him out of the door to the airport and as soon as he was gone called my friend Linda and told her I needed a ride to pay my rent because God had just provided for me. It was 4:58 pm when I walked into the place where I was supposed to pay my rent. God was not late. I had never had a monetary gift left for me before I actually watched someone’s home. Usually that was taken care of after they returned. God knew I needed it before then and remember Berta had left a week before and God prompted her then to leave a check. As you can imagine I couldn’t wait to call my friend Jackie for she had looked forward to my call that day, we praised the Lord then and continue to praise Him now for such a wonderful answer.
In May God provided for me in two wonderful ways. First I had friends who were having a big rummage sale and I was even able to help with it. After the rummage sale, all of my friends wanted me to have the money that was earned by having the sale. Then someone sent $500.00 to my old church. The treasurer from the church called me and said that the person donating it wanted me to use the money for my car payments. I again was in a joyful shock and did some figuring. I had enough to pay off my car debt of $712.00 totally with the money from the sale and from the gift. My car was now paid off, even though I couldn’t drive it. The person wanted to remain anonymous so I don’t know who did it but I was able to send them a thank you note through the Treasurer and then send thank you’s to all of the people who had put in for the rummage sale and let them all know how I used the money that God had provided by using them. I was just so amazed at what God was doing and how He was providing for me.
In June I again had a house-watching job but only for 3 days. When the lady returned she said that she wanted me to take the monetary gift she was giving me and use it towards my credit card debt, which she heard about through a friend that had been telling her of how God had been providing for me. She then handed me $1000.00. After tithing on the gift, I had enough money from what was in my checking account and the $900.00 to pay off my credit card debt, which was $1012.00 all together. I was so thankful to God and truly was shocked and so grateful for everything that He was doing for me. I took a look at my financial situation and come to discover that I was better off financially then I had ever been and I wasn't even working.
On July 21 I was able to drive again, it had been six months from my last seizure. It was kind of funny because when I did get all of the insurance and plates taken care of and was able to get in my car to go somewhere, I thought about it and truly had no place that I really needed to go.
Since that time even though I have been through a seizure disorder and a tragic car accident God has continued to provide for me. I am now working full time and I am in good health. Although I know I have failed sometimes, God has never failed me. In Malachi Chapter 4 it talks about how God challenges us to Tithe to him and see if He doesn’t provide for us. I have been faithfully tithing for 6 years and have never been without. My heavenly Father owns cattle on a thousand hills, He has slaughtered quite a few on my behalf. I want to challenge you to “TEST” God. He has so much to give you and He wants to bless you beyond what you can imagine. It doesn't matter how old you are if you receive an allowance from your Parents or a paycheck from your employer, I encourage you to tithe 10 % on your gross amount and see what God has in store for you. He will not fail you and you can not out give God and no matter how much your allowance or paycheck you can not afford “NOT” to tithe!
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