When God Provides Relief…

I’ll be quite honest with you all.

Money is probably one of my biggest sources of struggle regarding giving control over to God and trusting Him. Maybe it’s because my day job from the time I was 18 has been payroll, so I’ve always been in charge of controlling large amounts of the green stuff going out.

I’m usually pretty decent at it.

But with Annabelle brought some pretty major struggles. I had to reduce my hours, thus reduce our income. Then quit my job all together to take care of her. Our income was cut by almost 70%.

Now, I’ve told this story before. I owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to Mr Dave Ramsey because a few years prior to Annabelle, we caught the “debt free” bug and paid off ALL our debt and amassed our 6 month emergency fund. We were able to stretch that emergency fund, along with all the gifts people, even strangers gave us throughout the past 3 years, to ALWAYS be able to pay our bills timely. No amount of words I could say could express my gratitude to God, Dave Ramsey, and fabulous people who gave even when we were too proud to ask.

And now I’m able to go back to work a day or two a week, albeit temporary. While it is not ideal for our family due to the time it takes me away and the added stress, it helps pay the bills, and I am forever grateful.

What we don’t have, however, is much of anything “extra”.

Which brings me to my current cause of Mommy-worry-over-money.

When I started getting bills earlier this year for hundreds and hundreds of dollars owed to a previous medical supply company of Annabelle (bills that should have been covered 100% by insurance), I freaked out a bit. Okay, fine, a LOT.

I called most every month, trying to get it resolved. Called the supply company. Called our insurance. I was getting nowhere. I spend many hours on the phone, and many hours in tears, totally fretting over it. Late in the summer, I finally talked to a lady who seemed to finally know what she was talking about, who said she’d deal with it. So I decided for my own sanity that I’d take a few months “off” from dealing with it. I was like a hampster in a wheel, doing the same thing over and over, getting no results.

I might note: Upon reflection, I used the excuse that I was giving this frustration over to God. But really, I was more ignoring the problem then being overly Spiritual about it.

Moral: Ignoring a problem doesn’t = trusting God.

Well, it’s December. And I finally decided I needed to put my big girl pants on and call them for the thousandth time.

I called.

And was told our balance was ZERO! YEAH!

But then I was told that our balance was zero because they’d sent the whole $700+ bill to COLLECTIONS.

Visions of mean, nasty collection agents began ringing in my ear. I began to hyperventilate. This could NOT be happening. I spoke again to the lady, explaining that she had coverage that should have covered ALL of her expenses.

She noted that our insurance company had told them we had NO coverage.

I, uh, may have cried, yelled, and eventually hung up on her. I am not proud of this. I have dealt with many irrate employees in my time, and it is never fun. I NEVER want to be one of those people. And I was.

Then I called our insurance. They, in turn, were super nice. They again noted that we had coverage, we shouldn’t be billed, and they filed a “complaint” against the supplier for us.

It’ll be 6 weeks before I hear anything.

Mommy is NOT usually a complainer. But I don’t know what else to do. *sigh*

BUT! HERE is where something awesome came in. Actually TWO awesome things.

The first is that a friend and sweet member of my church family dropped off Coke and a bunch of chocolate on my front porch because she knew I was stressing. What a sweet woman!!! I will not lie. I drank half of the liter of coke in one sitting and ate way too much of the chocolate.

But the second was, as I was going through all the paperwork, I found a piece of paper I’d filed a year ago and forgotten about. It was from our insurance, a Case Manager offering to follow Annabelle’s case and help us as needed.

Considering I was sitting on the floor, surrounded by chocolate and a belly overflowing with Coke, tear stains on my face, I figured “help” in any form was never bad.

The next day, I got to talk to the caseworker.

AND OH MY GOODNESS.

A blessing is a small word for the hope she provided. She was as angry as I was about the whole billing situation, although she couldn’t do anything more at this point since the ball was already rolling, she said she’d keep an eye on the course of the complaint and help us through it. *phew* HELP! Thank you, Jesus!!!

She’s also going to help us get oxygen for our upcoming trips for Christmas to Grandma and Grandpa’s house and in January, and even giving us info on how to “fly” with oxygen.

AND a big bonus is that she used to be an ICU nurse about 4 years ago at the hospital Annabelle was at!! And if you know me at all, you KNOW the special place ICU nurses have in my heart!!! I spewed all my frustrations about the many issues we’ve had lately, and she understood them ALL.

So yes, Annabelle now has a caseworker… and Mommy feels about 1000 times lighter in my stress level and worry!

God knew EXACTLY what I needed this week.

Yup, Miss Stephanie is MY Christmas Present this year from Jesus, and I’m feeling pretty stoked about it!!