I don't know about you, but God tests me a A LOT.
When I got the call to come pick up applications for the children to attend the school, it was sometime in late May and I was 8 months pregnant. When I wrote the letter to the school back in early April, I was under the assumption that we would still be living in Allentown, either with my sister or in our own place. Although my deadbeat husband had not been providing any child or spousal support, I filed for it in April and thought that we'd be receiving something soon that would at least take care of rent.
Oh...the best laid plans...right? How many things can go wrong?
My sister decided in mid May that she would be moving to Maryland before the start of the school year and would rent out her house. I didn't see that coming. But I still had time for the support money to come in, so I wasn't worried yet. The first date for the support hearing was June 1st. My husband had it adjourned. The second date was June 19th, he was in the family court in Queens and I was testifying by phone in PA.
Apparently, he showed up with a letter from an accountant claiming that he only made $25,000 a year. I knew he was going to pull some crap like that, because he gets paid in cash by electronic transfers to a business account. The transfers are for large amounts of money from $50,000 to $200,000 or more. He then takes his cut out of that cash for whatever amount he planned to skim off of it. Therefore there is no way to track the amount of money he really makes. He doesn't put the money in the bank either. He keeps it at home, in hidden places, like socks in the sock drawer and other secret locations. I didn't even know how much he made, as his wife, I wasn't entitled to know this information.
It would be easy for him to play poverty in order to avoid taking care of his wife and children. Yet, he took me to court for custody at the start of all of this, which I'll talk about in more detail in another post. In any event, the letter from the accountant was unacceptable as income and the judge told him she wanted to see business records. He didn't have them so we were going to have to come back to court.
The judge asked me if I had gotten any money from him and I told her that I hadn't gotten a dime since January. This liar, then told the judge that he had $2,000 in money orders that he had been trying to give me, but I had been refusing to take! I told the judge that what he said was a lie. The judge ordered him to send those money orders to me immediately and to pay a temporary order of $500 a month in support - which breaks down to $100 a person for each one of us.
Pretty cheap don't you think?
The baby was born 4 days after that hearing and ended up spending 5 days in the NICU. The day I brought him home, my sister was moving out. So now I had even more to deal with as my days were focused on taking care of him and recuperating. Well, knowing that he had to send me the $2,000 right away was great news because that would go for the apartment. It should've been coming any day now, or so I thought. Wrong! I waited and waited, but it never came. He didn't send it. He flat out ignored the judge.
So now we had no money coming to save the day in order for us to get a place and it was now July. My sister had moved out and into her new place in Maryland by mid July and she had someone ready to move in and rent her house by August 1st. Now with 4 children, no money and no where to go, I finally began to worry.
I could not believe it was God's will for me to be homeless with 4 children - one being a newborn. But I had done all the praying and crying I was going to do about it. I was mad now. I was mad at God and a few other folks. But most of all I was mad at myself. I began to think maybe I had made a really bad decision in leaving my abusive husband. After all while with him, I was a stay at home mom, I was home schooling and taking care of all of the children almost single handedly, while my husband spent most of his time on the phone, the computer or the couch.
When he wasn't doing his 2 hours of work a day, he found other things to do with his free time that usually had nothing to do with me, the kids or helping around the house.
But I digress. Back to us in PA with no money and no where to go.
I kept thinking that something was going to come at the last minute and the kids and I would be spared having to live in our van, something that I was fully prepared to do because I was tired and weary. I was giving up and my hope was just about gone. I thought God didn't care about us anymore or He had plans for things to just keep getting worse for us because somehow I pissed God off more than everybody else.
I stopped talking to God, I had nothing left to say. I had nothing left to pray. He knew what we needed. He knew when we needed it. He knew what we had and what we didn't.
Oh...the best laid plans...right? How many things can go wrong?
My sister decided in mid May that she would be moving to Maryland before the start of the school year and would rent out her house. I didn't see that coming. But I still had time for the support money to come in, so I wasn't worried yet. The first date for the support hearing was June 1st. My husband had it adjourned. The second date was June 19th, he was in the family court in Queens and I was testifying by phone in PA.
Apparently, he showed up with a letter from an accountant claiming that he only made $25,000 a year. I knew he was going to pull some crap like that, because he gets paid in cash by electronic transfers to a business account. The transfers are for large amounts of money from $50,000 to $200,000 or more. He then takes his cut out of that cash for whatever amount he planned to skim off of it. Therefore there is no way to track the amount of money he really makes. He doesn't put the money in the bank either. He keeps it at home, in hidden places, like socks in the sock drawer and other secret locations. I didn't even know how much he made, as his wife, I wasn't entitled to know this information.
It would be easy for him to play poverty in order to avoid taking care of his wife and children. Yet, he took me to court for custody at the start of all of this, which I'll talk about in more detail in another post. In any event, the letter from the accountant was unacceptable as income and the judge told him she wanted to see business records. He didn't have them so we were going to have to come back to court.
The judge asked me if I had gotten any money from him and I told her that I hadn't gotten a dime since January. This liar, then told the judge that he had $2,000 in money orders that he had been trying to give me, but I had been refusing to take! I told the judge that what he said was a lie. The judge ordered him to send those money orders to me immediately and to pay a temporary order of $500 a month in support - which breaks down to $100 a person for each one of us.
Pretty cheap don't you think?
The baby was born 4 days after that hearing and ended up spending 5 days in the NICU. The day I brought him home, my sister was moving out. So now I had even more to deal with as my days were focused on taking care of him and recuperating. Well, knowing that he had to send me the $2,000 right away was great news because that would go for the apartment. It should've been coming any day now, or so I thought. Wrong! I waited and waited, but it never came. He didn't send it. He flat out ignored the judge.
So now we had no money coming to save the day in order for us to get a place and it was now July. My sister had moved out and into her new place in Maryland by mid July and she had someone ready to move in and rent her house by August 1st. Now with 4 children, no money and no where to go, I finally began to worry.
I could not believe it was God's will for me to be homeless with 4 children - one being a newborn. But I had done all the praying and crying I was going to do about it. I was mad now. I was mad at God and a few other folks. But most of all I was mad at myself. I began to think maybe I had made a really bad decision in leaving my abusive husband. After all while with him, I was a stay at home mom, I was home schooling and taking care of all of the children almost single handedly, while my husband spent most of his time on the phone, the computer or the couch.
When he wasn't doing his 2 hours of work a day, he found other things to do with his free time that usually had nothing to do with me, the kids or helping around the house.
But I digress. Back to us in PA with no money and no where to go.
I kept thinking that something was going to come at the last minute and the kids and I would be spared having to live in our van, something that I was fully prepared to do because I was tired and weary. I was giving up and my hope was just about gone. I thought God didn't care about us anymore or He had plans for things to just keep getting worse for us because somehow I pissed God off more than everybody else.
I stopped talking to God, I had nothing left to say. I had nothing left to pray. He knew what we needed. He knew when we needed it. He knew what we had and what we didn't.
He knew what He was going to do about it and He wasn't sharing it with me.
Or maybe I just stopped listening and believing....
