Stokes Sounds Off: Prayers would be appreciated

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Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Prayers would be appreciated

Hey guys! I know of a few of you, my readers, who have expressed sympathy and promised to send prayers our way as a result of the health problems my wife and I are both having. But I wanted to put out a request for prayers in our behalf for an additional reason.

Due to some very imprudent and downright stupid financial decisions I have recently made, we are in deep trouble. Most of the problem has been the result of our December Tithing and Fast Offerings somehow being processed twice through the online system. That was a bad enough problem. But we also were dropped from what dental coverage we had, and I got us set up with a new dental plan. Ordinarily, that would not be a problem. But being the naive and rather stupid person I have always been when it comes to impulsive financial decisions, I somehow neglected to consider our lack of resources and arranged for automatic payments from my bank account this month. Because I forgot to delay the start of our coverage until next month when we would have the resources to cover it, and because I had neglected to tell my wife that an automatic payment would be processed from our account, when the payment came through today, it resulted in our maxing out anything we had left of our already meager resources.

I am disgusted with myself for my stupidity, imprudence, and idiocy. The result of my folly is that we have absolutely nothing left for the holidays. So instead of spoiling my wife as I hoped to do, I have to wait to do that until next month.

It seems we are always impoverished beyond belief round about Christmastime each year. I think it was my first year blogging that, in response to my post about our financial destitution, someone anonymously sent us enough money to get us through the holidays to my next paycheck in January. I would love nothing more than to find that another Christmas miracle of that sort bails us out. But I have a notoriously bad habit of not doing nearly enough to keep us in good financial condition, make imprudent financial decisions, and then expect someone to bail us out of a situation that is solely and completely my fault and doing. I can't do that anymore.

Thankfully, we may be okay. I signed us up for food assistance with the state a long time ago, and my monthly allowance for that comes tomorrow. And in the meantime, if we do need anything, we do have access to funds from a PayPal credit line my wife was able to get for us solely on the basis of her good credit history. This will help us get what we need for the holidays. As for my own credit history, it's been tanked by the fact that I applied for and was given a line of credit with my bank, but have struggled to get it paid off. In fact, because we haven't been able to pay it off and have had to withdraw any such payment right back out again within days of putting it in, my bank doesn't have enough faith in my ability to pay it back and won't grant an extension of those resources.

My unemployed status and the fact that I get less than $800 dollars per month from the government does not lend itself to paying off our continually increasing amount of debt, including the Paypal. We just get anything partially paid off only to find ourselves increasing our use of these resources. And now, with the holidays approaching, we will once again have to tighten our belts.

I am just brutally honest enough to admit that most, if not all, of our problems stem from my financial imprudence and from the fact that I didn't work nearly as hard as I should have to retain the first and only job I've ever had, and that I have been too ill lately to look for another job, let alone actually working one. I feel in so many ways as though I am constantly running up a brick wall. And it doesn't help the hopelessness of my situation to realize and acknowledge that my wife is suffering the most from what amounts to my lack of a sufficiently committed work ethic, and my continual selfishness in believing and asserting that I am too sick to work another job, assuming I could even find one with any degree of sufficient swiftness. This is especially true in light of the fact that my wife almost risked her own life just to keep us going by working the only job she could get for the first two years of our marriage.

For all I have made her suffer through for the entirety of our marriage, and especially for the enormity of my most recent blunders, I think that I despise myself. And it absolutely kills me to realize that, not for the first time, my wife won't get a proper Christmas until January at the earliest, thanks to my stupidity and lack of foresight.

Because of all of this, in addition to the health issues we both are suffering which I outlined in that previous post done in the very early hours of this morning, prayers are desperately needed and would be so very much more appreciated than I can ever express or show. Thanks for your readership, interest, support, and prayers.

7 comments:

  1. If your credit is good, your bank may let you set up a line of credit; I have cerebral palsy and payments on my work are sometimes delayed, and borrowing a bit from our line of credit for just a few days has been very helpful. If you've been historically careful about money, this could also increase your credit score in the long run,

    Also, reach out to your bishop and let him know your needs; the church may be able to provide you a bit of money as well.

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    1. Michael, thank you for those words of advice. We have established lines of credit with our banks, but our situation has been such that we always have to withdraw any such payments right back out again to compensate for our lack of resources. As for getting help from our ward, we have had to do that more often than not during the entirety of our marriage. In spite of how destitute we were, while it has been better to do so of late, more often than not, our bishops have seemed to resent our requests for help, and they have, to a certain degree, even guilted us about not doing enough for ourselves to the point that my wife has had meltdowns about it. The last couple of times we have met with our bishop about our needs, it has been much better, as he has expressed genuine concerns about our situation and has asked us how we are holding up under the burdens we have to carry. He has told us not to feel bad about needing help, and has reassured us that this is why the Lord has made such funds available in His Church. And, as I intend to report in a new comment below, things are looking up because we have just today been the recipients of a miracle brought about by the generosity of my wife's family. More on that below in just a minute. Thanks for your kind response.

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  2. I will indeed keep you both in my prayers. Allow me to gently encourage you not to be too hard on yourself. Facing great difficulty is very discouraging yes, but it will pass. I do understand your situation very well when it comes to living from paycheck to paycheck, and still not having enough left over to take care of the heavy demands of expenses that just pop up from time to time. Having been in school for what seams like centuries, I have had things pop up all the time where I was left wondering how in the world I was going to pay off what I owed. I had $900 I had to pay off within 3 days my first semester. I simply had no idea how I was going to take care of this. But with prayer and wisdom I was able to get it paid in the required amount of time. Additionally, being in school has never been a walk in the park for me. It has always been so very taxing, daunting, and very often discouraging where I have wanted to quit multiple times. I have even risked my own health many times although inwise, I did because I was not willing to have my hard work mocked or put to shame by quitting. Consequently, I have, up to this point, succeeded in nearing the completion of my degree and I am approaching graduation. Most of my success has come from the assistance of my Father in heaven. So what I am saying with all of this is Do Not give up, DON'T give in to discouragement, and keep your faith strong, and walk with your head held high knowing that God has you engraven upon his hands and is aware of your every need. Trust him always, and keep in mind that he never forsakes anyone. Not even you. God's speed my friend, and if you need anything let me know how I can help.

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    1. Thank you so much for that encouragement. We so appreciate your expressions of concern, comfort, and solace. It has always made our seemingly hopless situation easier to deal with when we have heard how others have seemingly struggled for a while and then received the miracles they have needed. The same has been true in our own lives. As I explained above and will detail more fully below, we were just today the recipients of a miracle that is just what we need to be okay. It has been marvelous to see how the hand of the Lord has been at work in our behalf. And we seem to be blessed in spite of my many faults and failings. I know I am often more hard on myself than I may have needed to be. In this one respect, my wife has been the one to reassure me and to tell me to stop guilting myself. But I still feel very keenly just how much I am to blame for our present plight. As I said, though, miracles can and do happen, and we had one for sure today. More to follow on that below. Thanks again.

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  3. I understand as well. I recently had a reduction in hours at work and hope and pray things turn around for you and myself and coworkers. I need to support my family. I am back in school for a master's degree. I am praying for you and may family. I need more work. Please pray for all of us.

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    1. Thank you, Chris! You have always been so kind to lend your voice in support and sympathy for all we are going through. The Lord is keenly aware of us all, as I was reminded of just today by what happened. More on that in the comment below. Thanks again, Chris! We will pray for you and all of your coworkers.

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  4. We have been the recipients of the miracle we needed. Whenever things have been at their worst for us, my wife's family seems to instinctively know when we have needed the help. And today was no different. My wife's nephew and I share a birthday tomorrow (it will be my 30th), and so they always typically visit us the evening before my birthday each year. As they always are, they have been very generous with us, not just because of my upcoming birthday. They not only gave me their traditional birthday gift of something sweet and some cash: they also additionally gave me a gift card and gave a special envelope to my wife, in which we found a sizable additional amount of cash. I won't give numbers, because that's not anyone's business, but suffice it to say that, just with what we were given by them today, it will be more than enough to not only carry us through the rest of the month until I get my next check from the government, it should be enough to get us through for a while afterwards. And so, thanks to them always seeming to instinctively and intuitively know when we are in trouble, we will be fine. Prayers have been answered above and beyond anything we could have expected, and we are more grateful than any words can express that we have been able to ride out this storm and that we will be more than all right for the rest of the month. We have truly been blessed by the Lord and by my wife's family, and this has reaffirmed to us that miracles can and do happen. Now our prayers will be in gratitude for the answer we needed in response to previous petitions, and it is our hope and prayer that we will someday be in a position to pay it forward as has been done for us more often than we can count. Thanks to you all for your interest, prayers and expressions of sympathy and support. We so much appreciate it. And I am so grateful for the swift resolution to all of this. I feel like I can say and mean this with all sincerity: God is in His Heaven, and all is right with the world. Thanks again, everyone!

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