Interactions with God #91

While living in our first house in Phoenix, we had neighbors move in named Joe and Jackie.  They became good friends with Martha and I. They were not married while living there, and Joe, though not walking with God at the time, did grow up in the Church. While hanging out with them, Martha and I did often encourage them to both walk with God.

By October of 2002, Joe and Jackie had long since moved to another house and gotten married. It had been a year and 4 months since I got laid off from Sun Microsystems. Job prospects came and went, but none of them ended with a job offer. Martha and I were living in a rented house after we sold our house and October was the last month we could afford to pay the rent.

If I remember right, it was during the last week of October that I got a call from Joe. He wanted to meet with me, but wouldn’t tell me what it was about. Honestly, based on his tone, I figured something was wrong with their marriage. Even though I was hurting, I prepared myself to offer encouragement and/or a challenge to stay close to Jesus through whatever problems he was facing. Sometimes, it is really hard to do that, when you are hurting yourself. Dutifully, I left to meet with him at his office.

When I sat down with Joe, he began to tell me a tale of how a few months back, he and Jackie were having some trouble and separated. During that time, Joe, who had been doing well with his Auto Body Shop business, spend a bit of money to comfort himself. Among the items he purchased was a Rolex watch. Joe said he found himself purposefully showing it off as he wore it. When he and Jackie turned back to God again, he said God got on his case regarding the watch. He believed he needed to get rid of it. He then said that God told him to give it to me.

Joe knew we had issues with the job loss, but he had no idea how bad it was. He had no idea that as I sat there that I was completely unable to pay my rent for the next month. Amazed at what God was doing. I told him, “You know, I am not going to wear this.” He replied, “No, I fully expected that you would sell it. God put it on my heart to give it to you.” I accepted the watch.

It was a $6,000 watch when purchased new.  I didn’t have the box so the value in resale goes down quite a bit. At the jewelry shop, the guy said he would give me $2,500 for it. Though it seemed like a lot less that what Joe paid for it, I didn’t have any options. My rent was $2,000 for the month. The other bills were about $500, so the money fit the situation. The only lack was Martha’s upcoming birthday. I had no money to buy her anything, even with this watch. As I stood there wondering if I should try another jeweler, or accepting his offer, I came up with a crazy idea. “That ladies watch there…if you throw that in, I will sell you the Rolex.” “Done!” He said. 

At the last minute, God, again took care of our expenses and even added a birthday present for Martha. She was actually a little mad about it!

Since both our birthdays were in November and money was tight, we had agreed not to spend any money for them. On her birthday, after she opened the watch, she said “We agreed not to spend any money for birthdays!” I replied, “HA! I didn’t! The guy gave me the watch. I didn’t spend a thing!”