Take that Devil

This picture is the end of the story I would like to tell you. My dining room all filled up with hutches and store display shelving units. There was a fight and the devil lost, God won!!

BTW, I am totally stoked about this table being at home with me. Just not the other stuff shoved in here. We didn't have a dining room table because ours broke 2 years ago just after the layoff. Unfixable. I have wild monkeys for kids, did I ever mention that? Anyhoo, no money for a new one but hubby had built this table for a display table in my store which I then sold ( ha!!!) to a lady opening up a store down the road from me when I had to close my store. But now he is back at home and I can't tell you how happy I am to have a table. Y'all I can't lie, I had a folding table in my dining room. It was all we had. Now, I'll still have folding metal chairs pulled up to this guy but really, I don't care. I'm just happy to have a real non plastic table. PLUS, I get to paint him. Fun fun fun. I can paint him black, brown as in melted milk chocolate brown, or white, a lovely shade of taupe or I have a quart of the red that is in this room on the walls and it is also the exact same red I used to paint the walls behind my bookcases so I can do a distressed look with the black/red option or the distressed chocolate brown/taupe colors and then lacquer that baby up. Alas, I am not a decorator and I cannot choose but it will be fun to try something new. I cannot buy new paint so those are the options.

This is my story.

I've mentioned before my battles with receiving any money at all from the lady who bought my store fixtures, a real nightmare. I realized not long into it that I was being conned by rich people. Greedy rich people, which is probably why they are rich. So, yesterday at 9:16 am I receive an email from greedy rich lady that after being open only 3 months she is closing her store. She has already liquidated the store and removed all of her stuff from the location. She says she will open the store for me on Sunday from 11am to 1pm to come and get my hutches and fixtures. She says I can take what she has not paid for and she will keep the rest. (Meaning I am going to take the best stuff from the amount of what I have paid and leave you with the stuff you probably can't sell, which made me mad.)

I was like, are you kidding me!!!!!!!!!!! First she lies to me because I was walking around the house last Saturday and something in my head pops up that says "Google greedy rich lady's store". (okay, the thought in my head didn't say greedy rich lady, it said her name but I'm not gonna say her name here.) So I've learned that those inserted thoughts in my head that aren't from me & are out of nowhere are God so I thought it was odd but I googled it. Guess what popped up first thing. A posting on Craigslist saying store liquidation sale. I clicked on it and sure enough it was her store. I emailed her immediately and she told me she was only closing the location, not the store. She said she was moving. I thought she was lying. Sure enough. She said she would still pay me the money when her tax returns came in. This is the same lady who is rich and wouldn't give me a dime of the thousands she owes me a few weeks ago when we had no money for food and I told her I would have to go to a food pantry to feed my kids and she said what do you want me to do about it. She said business was business and although she had plenty of money to pay me from personally, her personal self had not bought them from me. Her business did and the business couldn't afford to pay. See, me no likey greedy rich lady.

So I got lucky enough to talk to her after being very very very very very upset. I have been counting on this money to help us catch up on bills like I can't tell you. I was going to tithe the money to the church and was looking forward to writing that check. I was truly distraught and the devil was having a field day with me and my husband making us think all kinds of nasty thoughts. We knew she wasn't going to give everything back, we knew she was keeping the best stuff. We also knew we were never going to be able to get rid of the stuff in my dining room that you see above and it would junk up my home FOREVER. But, worstly, she was only giving me 2 hours to get my stuff.

It is a 50 minute drive from her store to my home and back. If you took 15 to 20 min to load and secure the cases with the tie straps then it's more than obvious that I would only be able to make 2 trips. Um, it took four trips when I moved them to her store so that means me losing out on about $3000 worth of stuff. Not right in my opinion. Plus, hubby was furious that we would have to miss church. So I am beyond stressed out and she calls me. Which was stressful in itself. I am not good at arguing. I just can't bring myself to tell someone off no matter how wretched they are, it's just not in me. I can't do it. So I pick up the phone and I am calm and nice to her. I say to her, greedy rich lady I need more than two hours. I can only make 2 trips and it will take four. I need 2 to 3 hours more time. It's not fair that you email me today and give me a days notice to make room for all of this stuff, get a trailer and then only give me two hours to do it. She says that's all I'm getting. She says she has a Bible class in the morning and then a Christening that she has to leave for at 1pm. I say well, I have to miss church all together. She says that's not her problem. I say with a sad sigh, that's not right. I need more time, I'll never be able to get it all out. She says it will belong to the landlord then and is very stern with me. She says again she has to be in church. Which really just proved to me that the devil doesn't mind going to church at all. I think he shops there for new souls to play with. It's like his toy store. I know I sounded pathetic but I've worked with rich people so much to know that if you make them angry they will just cast you off completely. Meaning if I make her mad she just won't open the doors at all to let me get anything. She has already told me she is bankrupting the business so in her mind she is doing me a HUGE favor by letting me have them to begin with. So I say, it's not right, I've never done anything to you. With that she tells me maybe she can get there at 10:30 instead of 11. Oh, the generosity. Now the devil is really having fun in my mind. Let me tel ya. Then she adds, let me see if I can do anything which really meant "I'd like to get off the phone now.". So we say goodbye.

I decided to pray and ask the kids to pray. My husband storms out angry and goes to fix somebodies roof. I prayed and prayed that God would convict her. If she's in church then she obviously has some kind of God connection I hope. I also get really angry and for the second time in my life I pray for God's vengeance on her. I understood those Psalms when the psalmist was writing for God to punish the person tormenting them. Long history here, she was conning me all along and let my kids go without when she could have paid me. So, I prayed on two levels that God would change her heart and if she didn't change her heart then I give all my anger and nasty thoughts to him to punish her for her greed and lies. I asked the kids to pray that she would have a change of heart.

Guess who calls back 3 hours later. She says her husband will let us in at 5pm AND she is letting us keep everything. She said it wasn't fair for her to keep anything. Thank you Lord. This is where it gets good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My hubby makes a phone call to a great friend who we go to church with. Our new church that the friend invited us to. Hubby was looking for a second trailer to use, we didn't know how much time they were going to give us. The next thing I know the music director is on his way and we are to meet him and he is going to let us use his HUGE commercial flat bed trailer that will fit everything on it in one trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plus, he and the friend hubby called are coming to help us load it up and unload it to our home. Now, That's a church family!!

I was blown away. Do you know what the demeanor was of those two gentlemen who helped us was? PURE EXCITEMENT!!!!!!!! The second guy got there after we were about a quarter of the way through loading up and he ran out of his truck yelling, "Brother so and so is trying to steal my blessing, wait for me!!". I laughed so hard. They were happy about sweating and picking up heavy stuff because it was to help someone. They were making jokes about who could lift and load the most stuff to get the biggest blessing. It was all fun and jokes for them. No moping about how they were spending they Saturday afternoon. They were all smiles, truly I was just blown away. It was just a living picture of how God shows his love and mercy to us right there in front of me. Truly because brother so and so could have just hooked up the trailer and said have at it and we would have been overjoyed with gratitude but no. He hoped in the truck to help too. Man, that's the love of God. Those men laughed and joked the whole time and talked God. WHEW!!!

Not only did God soften her heart but he gave us the man power and a trailer to do it all in one load. If we had looked only to ourselves we would have spend 4 to 5 hours doing it with only me and hubby driving and unloading. Also, the hubby would not have stayed around that long and I would have had to leave some of my stuff. But no, with one call to a church member that member planned out a way and found help and everything was made beautiful once again.

No, we aren't getting the money we needed but I think we received something much better instead. I don't think I'd trade that loving example of God in us for anything.

Lord this was a long story but it touched me so much that I had to get it out. All the frustration and hand wringing turned to prayer and giving it to You and You totally worked it out for the good. You are sooooo cool like that.