You know the saying, “When it rains, it pours.” Well I’m changing that to say, “It never rains unless it pours.” This summer has been one big, huge pouring rainstorm. Or that is how it appears to me.

May 1, Mr. FullCup’s step-mom had a stroke. She was already battling bone and liver cancer. Early June we were told 1-6 months. My girls sobbed.  The older one said, “We’ve been through this before. Why do we have to lose another one?”

And I had no answers.

My 14-year old spent a week doing training with Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF). She was trained to teach boys and girls the gospel and bring them to know Jesus through Christian Youth In Action (CYIA). She has spent a few weeks this summer teaching Vacation Bible Schools, and 5-Day Clubs.

Her first Sunday at home after the training, she in tears told me “God was so real during the chapel services. He was there! I felt Him. I haven’t ever experienced that before. I want to feel that again. But I’m not getting that at church.”

And my heart broke.

Broke because I know exactly what she means. I’ve lived that too. I had no real answers, and telling her to suck it up because it will happen over and over again didn’t seem the right thing to say.

After one such club  we had traveled 7 hours, spent a week with friends and were traveling back to spend the weekend with friends at an outdoor concert when about 30 minutes from our destination the abs light comes on in my van. My van that has its issues. My van that needs struts, and has a leaky something or other and in the words of Mr. FullCup, “I’m just done putting money into that thing.”

So here I am with my girls and my friend’s daughter, 4 hours from home (30 minutes from my friend’s home). I have no idea what it means that the light came on. I did learn it meant I had no anti-lock brakes, but I did have brakes.

I love my van. I do. But I don’t like feeling stranded. I like being stranded much less.

Mr.FullCup would rather have dental work without numbing agents, have his fingernails ripped out than shop for a car. But that is where we are.

I am a 31 Gifts consultant. I signed up a year ago this past month and it hasn’t been easy. I’ve struggled to get orders and parties. I’m more than a little hesitant to gush about it, which is really what I want to do. But I know that can really turn people off.  So I’m still struggling.

Struggling to know if this is really what God wanted me to do. Do I get out, or do I stick it out? Do I plow through?

Last night I had a meeting and I was convinced it would be the last one I would attend. But God had other plans. I had put some feelers out and while at the meeting, I received an answer. A friend wants to party.

So it continues.

Now that I’ve chronicled my issues this summer, I look back and see God written all over it. He protected the girls and I in the van. ABS light could have meant no brakes, and in the very hilly area I was in would certainly mean at the very best an accident.

He provides. I need but to trust.