The past couple of days I have not been sleeping well. Dealing with my heart issues over the past year, today was one of the worst. I literally couldn't sit up without struggling with my breathing and severe weakness. After ending up in the bed twice, Mike finally came in to check on me and see what was wrong. He was concerned because I never nap, and any suggestion that I take one has been met with just about the same resistance as an obstinate child at nap time.
Mike didn't know that I had been holding in some very serious stress factors regarding the animals. We have not been able to find homes for the donkeys, not even rescue. I just couldn't find it within myself to burden my husband about the need for veterinary care when he is battling with the issues of potential foreclosure, unpaid bills, utilities and food. Today as he was paying bills he asked for me to go online and check the balance. That experience did me in and I crawled in bed, curled up in a ball and listened to “Worn Out Saints” x 2!!!
Later I was on Skype with my best friend Linda, weary and in tears. I unloaded a little to her explaining that all of the animals were due for Rabies vaccines and I didn’t know how I could go to Mike. Moreover, one of the donkeys has a foal due any time now. The dogs are in need of Heartworm medication as well, and the wet season is approaching. In Texas, when it comes to animals you don't play around at all with Rabies or Heartworm. In fact, we had a rabid raccoon on our property a year or so ago, and that picture was running through my mind.
Then, it happened! At approximately 5:00pm this evening we received a surprise call from Joe over at the tractor store. He had been speaking to the owner about our consignment and the owner told him to approach us about a deal. Joe related to Mike that if we were willing to reduce the tractor by another $500.00 they would cut a check for the full amount and send the check along with the driver when he came to pick up the tractor in the morning. This was a miracle of miracles in that we live smack in the middle of tractor country, and not only did they take the tractor but all of the accessories. PRAISE GOD!
We are just over three months in default on our mortgage payments, defaulted on homeowner insurance, defaulted on property taxes and other stuff. John Deere was giving us two months grace on our remaining tractor payments, but with what we had in our account we were not going to make it past another couple of weeks on basics.
We are not out of the woods by any means, but we are so encouraged and trusting God that this blessing will help see us through as God continues to work out the issues of settlement and a resolution of our real estate fraud matter.
We are surviving on God's grace.
UPDATE: We were unable to bring the mortgage current. We had to chose between electricity, food, our truck payment and auto insurance The mortgage company mandates full payment and will not except partial. They also eventually enforced their own homeowner insurance policy at about $6,000 per year on top of the flood insurance policy. At this point we just have to ride this out and survive until we get a trial date, hopefully before money runs out.
