God in the Details: The Power of One Small Practice

"I’ve heard it before, but this time, I lived it. That made all the difference."

God Prepares Before He Provides

This week a lot has happened for my husband and me.

First, let me give a little backstory. My husband, Gaven, had been working for this company for about a year and was let go unexpectedly. Six months later I was let go from my job! This is about a year ago from now. My husband has gone through the wringer when it’s come to actually finding a stable job. He’s had a couple opportunities, but they ended up being pretty unstable. I was luckily able to be employed a couple days later from my sister and brother-in-law watching their 1 year old. We’ve been blessed to not be close to debt, but it has been hard living on one pretty low income.

The job market has been rough for us (we’ve also been a little picky because we want to find something that works for us). And throughout all of this, we both have been working on launching our own businesses, which is an investment for sure.

To say the least, we’ve prayed a LOT over this last year or so for guidance in our career paths and how we can reach our financial goals. While we want to make our businesses work, we also want to do what God has planned for us. He is our first priority. We also are hoping to start a family within the next year AND buy a home… So we have pretty big dreams.

It’s been a pretty rough, stressful, and somewhat scary year - due to not knowing what the future holds.

But now, everything is starting to fall into place.

He’s Already Making a Way

Gaven now has not one but TWO job offers that are really good pay, and will be what we need to make things work in our future. One of those jobs is for REAL Salt Lake - being the team photographer. This is an incredible opportunity for him, and something that aligns exactly with his own business goals. The only kicker for me is he’ll have to travel a bit… And he actually can’t start this job until the middle-ish of next year - he’ll be taking over for the current photographer who doesn’t retire until next year.

This other job opportunity wasn’t much of a surprise, but it was comforting. He worked construction for about a couple of years before we got married. This was something we figured would always be a backup for us, but since he hasn’t applied for any since, we were a tiny bit worried it wouldn’t work out for whatever reason. But it’s worked out perfect for Gaven actually. He still wants to see if he can get another media job that aligns with his business in the meantime, but if he doesn’t get one before September, he will do construction. September is the deadline because my sister and brother in law are actually going to put my niece into school/daycare for the school season. But we’re just very grateful that the construction company was even willing to wait for Gaven. They were very understanding and supportive of his business goals.

Even the Almosts Are Part of the Plan

Last but not least, we also found a way to hopefully get into a house before the end of next year. Gaven’s family (especially his dad) is really into real estate. His dad found a home with an Assumable VA loan. That means that we can buy the home from the homeowner, but we have to pay the downpayment as well as the equity the previous homeowner has put into the home. So that’s a pretty high upfront cost, BUT then we can have the mortgage at rate anywhere from 2.25% to about 3.75%. And I’m not sure how the market is everywhere else, but it’s pretty crazy here in Utah.

This home his dad found was in Santaquin, which is about an hour drive from where we are now (in my parents’ basement). I’m a huge family girl so it would be pretty hard for me to live that far from my family, but it was also such a good deal, and would be hard for us to pass up. We went down this last weekend to look at the house, and it wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. I personally didn’t know what to expect since I’ve never been house hunting - at least for my own home - before. But Gav’s dad also didn’t feel right about it. At this time we thought finding an assumable loan is something that happens once in a blue moon, but his dad has actually been able to find quite a few more that are much closer to where we’d want to be.

I truly believe God put this experience in my husband and my life to kind of wake us up and give us the push we needed to actually work towards getting our own home. My brother in law, Josh, is also pretty educated in the home department. We asked for his thoughts on this home (before we went to see it) just to make sure it was a good deal and we weren’t missing anything. We had a good conversation about home-buying in general and he really opened my eyes to how close Gav and I are to getting a home.

To say the least, this week was really eye-opening and refreshing for us both and our future. All the stress about what our future holds and if we can even reach our goals has lessened dramatically.

It Took Doing It to Finally See It

Something Gaven and I started doing about a couple of weeks ago is writing down in our own little notebooks how we’ve seen God’s hand in our life that day. It’s something that I’ve heard quite a bit before. Gaven and I are Sunday School teachers to 11-14 year olds. A lesson that I gave a fewish weeks ago had to do with keeping our own “record” or journal. I was especially inspired this go around when I heard about Henry B. Eyring’s experience with keeping his own journal and writing about God’s hand in his life. The crazy thing is I had heard his talk a few times before and wasn’t as inspired as I was this time, reading it again in preparation for my lesson to our Sunday school kids. I felt heavily inspired to have Gaven and I start doing this ourselves.

The neat thing I’ve noticed about this exercise is how it’s not anything big, and it also doesn’t necessarily feel like any big “a-ha” moments or big grand gestures have come from this, but it’s still been powerful.

It’s taught me a few different, but BIG lessons. In the scriptures it says several times that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass (Alma 37:6). This is another thing I’ve heard many times before, but now that I’m actually recognizing and putting effort into this small and simple thing, I’ve been able to experience for myself this bigger thing come to pass. It doesn’t necessarily feel big yet, but it’s wild how many things I’ve been able to learn from this one small thing I’ve been doing every night for the past week or two.

One big thing is it’s made me talk to God more - not just when I need help with something - but just to also give Him gratitude for everything He’s been doing for Gaven and me. It’s also made think a more about Him, and I need to do better about doing it throughout the day, but it’s made me ponder about what’s happened to me that day, and it’s a very peaceful and comforting way to end the day. I know there’s plenty more for me to learn from this experience, but I’ve really enjoyed how much growth I’ve seen in very little time.

I don’t think I would’ve recognized God’s hand as well in this experience if I hadn’t been intently looking for His hand in my life. God’s timing and clockwork never ceases to amaze me.

Tell me in the comments below!

What’s one “small and simple” thing that’s made a big impact in your life lately? Or do you have any similar experiences?