Trials/Blessings

Are trials supposed to turn into blessings? How can you turn a trial into a blessing? From learning from it. Gaining knowledge, patience, ? what exactly?

From my limited knowledge trials come in all shapes and sizes. Whether it be physical, financial, spiritual, emotional, trials come. Some come to us from our Heavenly Father and others our inflicted upon is by our selves through our own actions and thoughts.

Our trial: 2005 Trailblazer

This vehicle was pushed upon us by a dealer. We were young (dumb) and didn't think it through. They qualified us for more than we could afford. We had almost a $500 payment each month, along with rent and two children and other bills.

Then after a year of owning this vehicle things started going wrong. Things kept breaking and we'd fix it and another thing would break. We kept putting money into the vehicle so it would run. Thus forcing us to miss payments. We couldn't call it a lemon because it was always something new breaking.

Things just kept us from paying the car payment...things like Daniel losing his job...twice...being unemployed stops all cash flow and you don't know how to live. Thank heavens for family and the church.

Since we weren't making payments the finance company kept calling and calling and yelling and harassing and making our lives quite unpleasant. Finally they put in an order to repossess the vehicle, we were able to sell some things and borrow money to pay them so we could have this vehicle that would barely run.

This kept happening and finally they said if we did not pay them $4,000 they would repossess the vehicle. Where are we supposed to find that kind of money. Daniels only had his job for a little over 6 months and I am working part time.

Where do we turn?

We turned to prayer. We fell on our knees and asked Heavenly Father what we should do. Our credit was shot. We had no money. And the vehicle would barely run. We needed a vehicle to get Daniel to work and me and the kids to school. What should we do? Should we ask the church and family for money? Or should we just let them take the Trail Blazer? What should we do?

After we ended our prayer we sat in thought for a moment to feel inspiration on what course we should take. When the doorbell rang.

Who could it be? No one ever comes to visit us other than the kids friends and the kids were already outside playing. So they wouldn't ring the bell. We go down and open the door to none other than the re-po man.

At first we were shocked. Because we had just gotten off the phone with the finance company and they said they hadn't put the re-po order in YET. (LIARS!) According to the re-po man he had the order for a full 5 days. And that finance company's tell him to not ring the bell and to just take the car. So that they can weasel out another payment.

We cleaned out the car, with questions from the children and I've never felt so down on myself. How could we let this happen. But then I realized...our prayers were answered. We didn't know what to do, who to turn to and we needed Heavenly Father to tell us what to do. And he did. He answered our prayer. Even though we felt horrible, we had no car, we knew things would work themselves out and that we would be okay. I felt at peace as the nice re-po man took our trailblazer away.

What did we learn:
1-don't buy from a dealership
2-wait, it doesn't have to be done that day (no matter how the salesman pushes)
3-look at other options (you always have options)
4-make sure you can afford it-not that the dealer says you can afford it.
5-blessings come in many forms

I'm grateful for this trial, because it was at every turn, but we learned from it. And I personally gained a stronger testimony, that Heavenly Father does hear and answer prayers, even in ways we don't expect.

Anyway sorry for this downer of a post, but I was impressed to share this interesting spiritual blessing/trial.

Until the next post...