Faith #3 & #5

Today I gave a Family Home Evening lesson on tithing. It was pretty simple. We played Money Bags, but as we earned our money we calculated the tithing we need to pay. After the game was over, we looked at the money we had earned and was able to keep verses the tithing. It was a good visual on how tithing really isn't all that much compared to the entire total.

I know I have been blessed in my life by paying tithing. This has never been a problem for me. Probably because my mom and dad taught me from an early age, so it is just something I have always done. Mike and I have always payed our tithing on our gross income. Only once have I had a problem with this. When Mike and I were moving from Washington to Georgia, he received a $15,000 bonus. We were going to use this to redo the siding on our house which needed to be done before we could sell it. When Mike's check came we noticed 4% had been taken out to buy stock. At this time 4% was automatically taken out of Mike's check to purchase stock in the company but we didn't anticipate it to be taken out of bonuses as well. Between this and the taxes on the bonus, we didn't have enough to cover the siding. This was the only time I pondered on just paying tithing on our net instead of our gross. I really struggled with this.

While I was trying to figure out what to do, I flew to Idaho Falls to see my grandma and my cousins' new babies. (Brooke had just had Kaydra and Courtney had Kalli) While I was there, I was reading some of our family history in one of the binders at Grandma's house. I remember reading about one of my ancestors that was so poor, but paid more tithing than he needed too. He was even told that it was too much, but still insisted to pay what he felt he owed. After reading this account I was immediately humbled. How could I be worried about paying this amount when obviously we weren't struggling financially. I knew we would figure out a way to pay for the siding.

When I got home, we wrote the check and handed it in. The NEXT day, Mike received an additional $10,000 bonus. Wow. Talk about humbling. Here I had never struggled with this principle of the gospel, but the first time I even wavered, after showing faith immediately I was blessed with a witness that would strengthen me to the end of my days. I know that because Mike and I have always paid a complete tithing we were blessed during the year and a half of Mike's unemployment. During the entire time we had no financial worries. We just didn't. I love how Heavenly Father always keeps his promises.