Mount Everest - first camp reached

Ok. So the title may seem a little out of the blue. Let's see if I can clear it up.
Recently, Mount Everest has been coming to mind a lot lately. First it was a Bible study I was doing for my MOPS group. Then, I caught a show on TV about it. Then another. Then, when I turned on the radio, someone was talking about attempting to summit Mt Everest. Then I caught another 2 or 3 shows on TV about it. I started to think that the Lord was trying to tell me something. That Mt Everest was a recurring theme in my life lately, and that just maybe I needed to remember what I was learning about Mt Everest in case it came in need soon.
Well, my Mt Everest has arrived, and we've been to base camp and to the first stop up the mountain, called C1. There are 5 camps including base camp, and not including the summit. I've learned from all the recent Everest information coming my way, that once you get so far up the mountain, you can only breathe with help from an oxygen tank. There simply is not enough oxygen to keep you alive for much more than a breath. I've also learned you have to be very conditioned to attempt Mt Everest. You have to train and be very physically fit in order to attempt it.
Well, I started to think that there just might be a Mt Everest in my future, and it would do me well to prepare for it with prayer and more prayer.
Everest has arrived. We have hit the mountain, and are beginning to climb it. My hubby and I are having some severe financial problems. There simply is not enough money at the end of the paycheck. We cannot pay bills and buy diapers and groceries. It's not possible. Our budget was stretched to the max, with not a dollar to spare, and then hubby and I both had to go to the doctor for different things that could no longer be ignored. Hubby had a sleep study, as I think I've mentioned, and now, those bills are due. We have about a hundred dollars in medical bills each month that need payed. Add to that, a friend has called in a note, and we have to pay her the money we have owed her for a year, $25 dollar at a time until it's payed. Add to that, the water bill came and was due last week, and that's another $160 that we don't have in our normal budget.
So to put it shortly, his check came in on Friday, and was immediately eaten up by bills and overdraft fees. Eaten up so much that in fact, bills that I had already sent out would bounce if action was not taken. In order that no more bills would bounce, causing us NSF fees, we found it necessary to take out a payday loan from the bank, to cover the weeks between last Friday and two Fridays from then. So, we started out our 2 week span in the hole already, and still hadn't bought groceries or diapers or gas for our van.
See why I'm a bit stressed? The mountain has arrived.
So we've stressed for a couple days. I took that stress to church with us this morning, and went to talk to my pastor's wife, Dianna. I wanted her to pray for strength and faith for my husband and I in the next couple of weeks. Well, I told her more than I had intended to (she has one of those personalities that just makes you want to share your life with her) and she ended up asking the pastor and my hubby to pray with us. So we did. We prayed, and I cried it out, and said good afternoon.
Well, the Lord is so awesome I don't even know what to say. We went to them because we wanted prayer, not charity.
Our pastor and Mrs. showed up at our door this afternoon with an entire car load of groceries. Groceries that now my family and I don't have to worry about buying. They bought enough for us to have a few meals, you know, tacos, spaghetti, some fresh fruit, lunch meat, bread, juice, milk. They went grocery shopping for us. And then gave us a card with a hundred dollars in it.
I cried some more. I don't even know how to say thank you for that. It's too much. But they were adamant, it was not charity. It was one family member helping out another. They said that if they as family could not help out a family member in need, then what business did they have of having a church? That we were in need, and that we need not feel guilty or ashamed.
But we don't always need help. This is the first time in a long time that we just haven't been able to make the dollars stretch. I only pray that we will be able to repay the favor someday. That we will be able to help another family in need.
What an awesome thing to do for someone!
What an awesome blessing!
What an awesome God we have!
So here we are at C1, the first leg of the journey. I am learning that the only thing that will carry us through the journey, to the end of being worried if we're going to make it, is the Lord. He is my oxygen tank. He is the only reason we'll be able to climb this mountain. It can be climbed. It can be conquered, but only by giving ourselves to Him, and into His hands.