I don’t consider myself as being poor, but I suppose my income is rather low.  My disability income is low enough that I can get $10 a month in Food Stamps if I wanted it.  I rent a two-bedroom/two-bathroom apartment because having a roommate to share the rent and utilities is the best way for me to pay the rent and utilities, to have enough for food and to have a little left over for recreational purposes.  I’m content with the quality of lifestyle that my income allows me.

There have been times when I didn’t have a roommate or when I had a roommate that couldn’t keep a job so they couldn’t always pay me their share.  Often during these times I didn’t know how I was going to pay all the bills, or pay the bills and still buy food.  Looking back I still don’t know how I made it through financially sometimes, so I know it was by the Grace of God that I made it.  It’s by the Grace of God when I have enough money, too.

There are two ways God has blessed me during financially tough times.  The first way is I was blessed with the wisdom to know that the first bill I always pay and pay on time is my rent, so I always have a place to live.  Regardless what other bills I can’t pay, I still have a home and that’s a good feeling. 

The second way I’m blessed is I have the most wonderful friends. I’ve had friends who have cleaned out their refrigerators and pantries and given me food.  Some have lent or given me a few dollars sometimes so I could buy food.  A couple friends have paid for my Internet hookup
a couple times when I couldn’t.

Occasionally, when I’ve had my aides get my wallet out to put some money in my shirt pocket to buy groceries or to divide my money to budget it out, there’s been more money – usually $10 to $20 – than I should have had.  It’s happened often enough that I’ve become convinced
that God puts extra money in my wallet when I need it and I like when that happens.  I think of it as manna from heaven.

Yesterday morning I went to a grocery store and florist shop.  At the florist shop the woman helping me put $10 change in my wallet and put my wallet back in my little pouch.  In the afternoon I was shopping at another store and a friend was with me to help.  I asked him to get
my wallet out and count my money.  I had him count it three times because there weren’t any ten-dollar bills in my wallet, but two hours before I saw a ten-dollar bill put in it.  Then yesterday evening I asked my evening aide to count my money again and to clean out a lot of grocery receipts I’d collected, figuring the ten-dollar bill was mixed up with them, but it wasn’t there.  The only thing I can figure out is God needed it and took it.  Manna TO heaven.  It’s all of God, anyway.