money miracles

I usually like to avoid talking about our finances on the internets.  First, we're super poor and that's just the way it is.  Second, it's private information and all that.  However, in the spirit of thanksgiving and gratitude, I'm going to share this story anyway. 

Today I am thankful for money miracles.

This morning, I hopped on my student account to find that I had been awarded a scholarship.  Usually, the school finishes awarding scholarships by the fifth week of school, so I was quite surprised.  I went in to the financial aid office this afternoon to make sure it wasn't a mistake - it wasn't.  Sometimes the budget gets expanded or students don't qualify for their awards, so they re-allocate the money to other students.

I couldn't believe it, especially because we really needed this money.

When I got really sick at the beginning of the semester, I dropped half of my classes because I literally thought I was dying.  School was the least of my worries, but to save my GPA I had enough clarity to drop most of my credits.  Due to an unfortunate alignment of school and federal deadlines, dropping the classes meant we had to pay back the pell-grant money I had used, but the school would not refund the tuition I had payed.  We could not pay that money back without dipping into our savings, which we make a big effort not to do.  After all, we have major medical event coming up (birth) and an impending addition to our family.  Both of these are expensive things!

The scholarship I got covered the debt and then some.  The extra has come at a perfect time to help out with some other unexpected costs, and now we don't have to use our carefully budgeted monthly income or savings to pay off the debt.

This is a huge blessing.  Tyler and I try hard to be careful with our finances, but we would never make it without miracles like this.  This is only one example of many financial miracles that have taken place over the course of our marriage.  I would be remiss if I didn't give credit to our loving Heavenly Father, who watches out for us and knows that three jobs just isn't enough sometimes.

I also should point out that I know these blessings come directly from paying tithing.  I know that giving back a portion of our income to the Lord allows the Lord  to bless us for our faithfulness.  Tyler and I cannot afford to miss out on these blessings!  Without them, we would have gone without food and electricity and many other things several times in the last two years.

Information on tithing from a few different sources:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints  

other Mormons 

another blogger

What are you thankful for today?

-Mrs. Smith