Our First Rent Payment

Jeremy and I got married on July 31, 1993, and we headed straight to Broken Arrow, OK after our wedding to spend our first night in our one bedroom apartment that we had there, waiting for us.  We had stayed with my dad and step-mom the week before and gotten it all ready.  We were so excited about beginning our life together!  Our plane left for our Tennessee honeymoon the next morning at 8:00 AM.  I wouldn't really recommend doing that...getting married, driving two hours to your new apartment, and booking a flight for 8:00 AM the next morning!  We were so tired, to say the least, but happy!  I should see if I can find the picture of us that we took when we left the wedding and post it on here.  You can see the excitement in my eyes, definitely!

Jeremy had been saving as much money as possible for our honeymoon, and we had a pretty good chunk of money to spend while we were in Gatlinburg, TN.  We stayed for a week, and just enjoyed ourselves.  Jeremy and I were, of course, off work that week, and I had taken off the week before the wedding to get things ready for the wedding, the move, the honeymoon...that sort of thing.  When we got home from the honeymoon, Jeremy started working at the Walmart there in Broken Arrow.

About one week after we got home, I had a big realization.  I'm usually pretty good with planning and budgeting, but I saw something we had missed.  Our rent payment was coming due, and Jeremy was only going to have one paycheck before that happened.  And unfortunately, his paycheck wasn't going to be enough to pay our rent, not to mention the fact that we were going to need to buy some groceries as well.  I hadn't found a job yet, though I had been looking.  So, this realization was not good, to say the least.  How were we going to pay our rent?

Now, we hadn't gotten paid since being married, so this was going to be our first paycheck as a married couple.  I had tithed on my own before we got married, meaning that I gave the first 10% of my income to the church that I attended in Parsons, KS.  But, this was going to be our first time getting paid since we got married.  And, the thoughts began swirling in my head, "You can't pay tithe with that paycheck Jeremy is going to get.  You aren't even going to be able to pay your rent, let alone buy groceries.  There's no way that you can pay tithe."

Thank God that even though I didn't know very much about battling these kinds of thoughts at the time, He helped me and graced me to do the right thing.  I fought those thoughts with the Word of God.  I remember it so clearly.  I was driving in my little blue Chevy Spectrum home from Walmart, and those negative thoughts just kept playing over and over again in my mind.  No one was in the car, but I spoke out loud anyway, and boldly said, "No, we will be a tithing couple!  We will always give the first 10% of any money that comes into us to the Lord.  That is what we will do!  And, God will take care of all our needs, because that's what it says He'll do in His Word!  It says that My God WILL supply all of our needs, and He will! (That, by the way, is a scripture from the book of Philippians.)  He told us to get married and move to Broken Arrow to go to Bible School, and He will supply all our needs and take care of us, even though we made a mistake and didn't hold back enough money from our honeymoon for our rent.  We are tithers, and we always will be!"

And, that settled it for me!  Anytime the thought would come over the next few days that we weren't going to have enough to pay our rent, I would say, "My God WILL supply all of our needs!"  And, that was that.  I didn't realize it at the time, but what I was doing really was the perfect thing, battling thoughts with the Word of God.  He is so faithful to help us even when we don't know what we're doing! :) And, as a side note (because of course I must have at least one side note), this is such a good reason to read the Bible and find out what it says for yourself!  The Bible will help you.  It's not some dusty, old book that doesn't mean anything.  No, the Words in there are alive, and if you believe them, act on them and speak them, they will change your life and your circumstances!

So, Friday came and Jeremy got his paycheck.  I was at home at our apartment and he called me.  "Nikki, you're not going to believe what happened with my paycheck."

"What?"  I replied.

"Well," he said, "It has my regular pay, and then it has a line that says Extra Pay for $140.  When I first saw it, I thought, 'Glory to God!" but then I knew it wasn't right, so I went to my supervisor and told her there was a mistake on my check.  She looked at it and said I must have had some vacation pay on there, but there is a spot for vacation pay, and it isn't on that line, which I mentioned.  And, then she said I must have won the safety award and that is what the extra $140 is.  So, I asked her how much the safety award usually is and she said $50, so I told her that really doesn't make sense that it would be the safety award.  She said not to worry about it.  Just keep the pay, and we'll figure out what it is later."

Well, we never did find out why Jeremy's paycheck had Extra Pay on it for $140, but with that and his regular pay, we paid our tithe, our rent, and had more than enough to go buy a whole bunch of groceries!  We were shouting praises to God all the way to the grocery store, and thanking God for taking good care of us, just like He said in the Bible that He would.  And, that was our first experience of watching God supernaturally meet our needs, and we've had so many more in the last 19 years that I could never even remember them all, let alone write them down.  God's Word is true, and He will never let you down when you put your trust in Him!

"But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."  Philippians 4:19