It's a MIRACLE!!!

There is absolutely no other way to explain it!

About a week ago, Ben and I realized that his paycheck wasn't going to be enough to cover our entire rent amount. (I should preface this by saying that I am currently looking for a full-time position, locally, after commuting an hour away for two years. I am working a part time job at the moment, but it isn't bringing in enough money, so Ben and I are barely scraping by with certain expenses.)

Back to the rent....So we decided that we would use my paycheck to cover the rest of the rent (instead of using it to cover an automatic payment that would be withdrawn from my checking account, around the same time of the month). We decided it was better to have a place to live and food to eat, and that we would just have to trust God to take care of the rest....which has been the big challenge for us over the past month!

On October 2nd, I knew that the automatic withdrawl was going to be made from my checking account. This was the same day I was supposed to receive my paycheck. I was stressed out because I knew I couldn't cover the withdrawl and was afraid that after they attempted it, not only would my account be in the negative and I would be charged for having insufficient funds on top of it....but also that they wouldn't let me cash my check to pay for our rent...hence another possible catastrophe.

So, at 9am I called my account to see if they had withdrawn the money yet. Nope - still okay. At around 10:30am I received my check and, still fearing they wouldn't let me cash my check, due to a possible negative account balance, I called my account again to see if it was in the negative.

To my suprise, the balance had gone UP! I listened again and found that a deposit had been made into my checking account of $276.16. I called Ben and asked him if he had made a deposit and he said he didn't even know my account number.

Now I was stressed out that the bank had mistakenly deposited someone else's money into my account, and that the automatic withdrawl would take place, using their money...and that I wouldn't be able to pay it back. Believe me....I knew we were in a place where we could certainly look the other way and just let it happen. But I know what it is like NOT to have money when you need it and I just couldn't let someone else's finances get screwed up!

I rushed off to the bank, cashed my check and then told the teller about the deposit. She asked, "So you don't know where it came from?" Which I thought was kind of a funny question. I said no, and explained the situation and my fear that someone else's money had been placed in the wrong account.

After talking to another teller in the branch I was in, and then calling another branch and talking to the teller responsible for inputting the deposit, she came back and said it was a check deposited to my account by a particular company. I told her that the company was the one who was supposed to do the automatic withdrawl that day. She went back to the phone and then came and confirmed that it was indeed being deposited to my account and that it wasn't someone else's money.

As if that wasn't weird enough....

So on the way home, I talked to Ben on the cell phone and he was asking if he needed to take an advance on his paycheck to cover the rent, so that I could use the money in my hand for this automatic withdrawl that was supposed to happen. I explained what happened and told him to wait until I could call the company that had made the deposit and see what was going on...hoping that we had received some kind of refund.

At 2:15pm, I called the company from home and explained the situation. The gal on the other end of the phone looked at my account and said that there was no record of that amount and no record that any deposit had been or was going to be made. She also said that as of 2:15pm, my automatic payment had been made. I had to repeat it...."So, my payment has been made for today?" She said, "Yes, it may not post to your account until a little later, but it's been taken care of."

We went on to talk over a few other things and then she told me to call if I had any other questions over this mystery deposit, and that maybe the bank had read it wrong or something. She told me that if they were going to make a deposit or send me a check that they would have prefaced it with a letter first - which is what I would have expected. Then she told me to keep up the good work....to which I just kind of laughed and said that I was trying.

I got off the phone kind of stunned. I called my bank and the money was still in my account. I called half a dozen more times over the next few hours to see if the withdrawl had been posted.

At 5pm, I called my account again. The exact amount that had been earlier deposited into my checking account, $276.16, was no longer there. (I should say that my automatic withdrawl was supposed to be in the amount of $254.) Not only was the money no longer there, but there was no record of it being withdrawn. There was no record that $254 had been taken out for this particular payment.....I listened to three different menus. It told me the last two checks to have cleared, but nothing about this mystery $276.16. There was absolutely no record of it.

I called Ben and told him what had happened. I told him that the only thing I could figure out was that, somehow, God had deposited money into my account, caused the payment to be made on the automatic withdrawl, and then removed the money again. Ben kind of laughed and said that's what it sounded like to him too.

I am still pretty blown away by the whole thing. I was talking to one of my girlfriends and we kind of figured that either God had taken care of it completely, or that it would come up as a mistake at some point in the future, when Ben and I have the money to cover the payment.

Either way, Ben and I both believe it was an absolute miracle of God. There is just no other explanation for what happened. God took care of us at a time when we didn't know what else to do. We had just decided to make sure our basic needs were met and to try to trust God to handle the rest. And boy did He ever!

I also have to say that in the midst of this not-so-fun process, there have been several people who have gone out of their way to help us out. They have each been very generous in their own ways...some financially, some through buying us groceries, and a whole lot through their prayers and love and emotional support. It has been a rough journey so far, but with the love and support of our friends and family, and with God as our provider, we are learning how to trust God in new ways....and learning to trust one another too.

God is good....all the time...even when we aren't so sure in our own minds that He will come through for us! I hope that by our sharing this adventure in faith and miracles, you are able to experience God's miracles in your own life - whatever that may look like for you!

It's like nothing we've ever imagined!