A blessing in disguise?

If you read this blog you probably recall that our family van was in an accident a few weeks ago. The damage was bad enough that the insurance company just gave us a check to cover the cost of replacing it.

Well, we originally planned to use that money toward a new(er) van, realizing we would probably have to borrow some to cover what the insurance money didn't. Neither of us liked the thought of taking on more debt, but we weren't sure what other options we had.

As we were waiting for the insurance company to send us a check, we picked up our van and drove it home. Yep, drove it home. The damage did not make it undriveable, but it did make it make it ugly. As I rode home I realized that there was really no reason we couldn't keep the van. It is in good mechanical condition, it's just a little banged up.

You also may recall one of our goals for this year is to get out of debt by our anniversary (May 27). Well, the insurance money was enough to completely wipe out one of our debts and put a good dent in the other one.

So, we wrote the check to pay off our smaller debt and were planning to write another check to pay down the remaining debt when we got a call from some friends. They offered us an incredible deal on a new(er) van.

We haven't finalized the deal, but it looks like we're going to go ahead with it. Then, if all goes according to plan, we will donate our van to a ministry in need so that we can bless someone else.

God has an amazing way of working things out in ways that I never would have thought of. What started out as a very discouraging occurrence (the accident) has turned out to be a boost toward our goal of becoming debt free - and it will end up blessing us and others in the process. Amazing!