What happened before Part One (Part Two)

Now that I have you interested I want to tell you the part of the story before Part One. First of all you have to know that Darrick and I were not looking to buy a house anytime soon. This August we will celebrate 14 years of marriage. We have dreamed of owning a house all that time. But since Darrick is in the military we have never thought it was a good idea because we never stay anywhere more then a few years. Plus he was only home on leave for 12 days, not the ideal time to buy a house. Second you need to know that WA is the first place that we have been stationed that we can actually see ourselves living here the rest of our lives. The weather took some getting use to for me but Darrick loved it from the start. We have always dreamed of owning a house in the forest, maybe even a cabin. WA has so much forest everywhere and we love that. We love our church, our friends and our schools. Third you need to know that we stink at managing money. Darrick and I are both spenders and not savers. We can manage a check book and pay our bills but have never done good with saving or sticking with a budget. Have you heard of tithing? If not then as Christians we believe that one way we worship and thank God for all that He has blessed us with is by tithing. Tithing means that 10% of what Darrick brings home in pay belongs to God. We give it back to God at the offering at church. We have struggled with tithing too. When we moved from Hawaii to WA we lost about 1/2 of Darrick's pay due to allowances and different things. When you hardly have enough to make ends meet it is hard to write out that check to our church. At the beginning of 2011 I made a sort of resolution with God. I made a commitment to Him that I would tithe 10% to Him off every pay check all year long, which means 2 times a month. Now things were going great until we got to a week when extra expenses came up. I was struggling whether I should write the check. I decided that the next time I talked with Darrick I would ask him if I should write the check or not. Darrick was concerned about us having enough money for every day things and said I should skip it this time. But I still was struggling. After much inner turmoil I wrote the tithe check and put it in the offering plate and have been faithfully since then. Darrick sent me this email today: Jenn, God is too good to me and I think that this house is because of your faithfulness and not listening to me. I am so proud to have a Woman of God for a wife. I think that this is what is happening to us because of you tithing when we did not have the money. You are so wise. I love you and are so thankful that you are my wife. If this won't help people believe in tithing then nothing will. I am so excited for our house and so thankful. See verse below. Love, Darrick Malachi 3:10 "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. 'Test Me in this' says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it'. I am not sharing this story to show how awesome and faithful I am, because I am not. There are plenty of times that I have not followed God. I share this story in order to give ALL the glory to God for this house! Stay tuned for Part Three