One Way to Rest in God’s Love (Even When Things Go Wrong)

Recently, a sister HSP named Debra sent me an excited message.

Although she’d just made a costly mistake, she’d been able to stop herself from over-thinking, ruminating, or punishing herself!
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Listening to Debra share her story gave me a Vicarious Mastery Experience — which is when you gain the confidence to do something by hearing about someone else doing it … or watching someone else do it.
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I was so blessed by her story of putting new skills into practice that I asked her permission to share it with you here.

Here’s Debra’s story of learning to rest in God’s love:

Before I left for the mountains a couple weeks ago, I had a credit card payment to make. 

So I went online and I tried to transfer the money from our savings account to the account that we pay bills out of. But it wasn’t working. I kept getting the message, “Try again later. Try again later.” 

Since I was leaving the next morning, I called customer service for our bank. The man was very nice, and he said, “You know, I see your account. I see you have a high enough balance to make this transfer. I don’t know why it’s not going through!”

He even tried to do it manually for me, but it still wasn’t working.

Finally he said, “You’ll have to try tomorrow.” 

Well, I forgot.

With all my packing and preparations, I completely forgot to try again before I left. And I had no internet service up in the mountains. So I missed the credit card payment.

Now, mind you, we have been faithful card-carriers since 1987. Never missed a payment, never made a late payment for 37 years. 

Well, they put a late fee of $29 and I thought, I can eat $29 because I did forget to try again before I left town the next morning. 

But today, when I went to pay my bills, I discovered they’d added an interest charge $157.78.

And I couldn’t leave that much alone!

I could feel myself getting all flustered and thinking This is all my fault because I forgot to try the next morning! 

And then I thought, What can it hurt to call and ask? 

So I called my bank, and I told the customer service rep, “You can see in the comments that I tried hard to pay this before I went out of town.”

She saw what I was talking about and said, “I’m going to get the credit card department on the line, and we’ll work through this.”

So while I was on hold, all of a sudden I got really overwhelmed with emotion, and I thought about you, and I wrote down:

• I made a mistake.
• It’s okay to make mistakes.
• It’s okay to ask for help.

Then I walked away and got something out of the laundry, and when I came back I added:

• It’s okay if this doesn’t work out the way I hope it will.
• I am still safe.
• I am still loved.

I got all choked up and really focused on receiving that from the Lord and resting in the truths I wrote down.

Then a new rep came on, listened to my long story, and said, “Well, let me see what I can do to help. We do appreciate you being a faithful customer for 37 years, and I’m happy to take the late fee of $29 off. Unfortunately, the interest charges cannot be reversed.”

So I did get $29 back, but I have to eat the $157.78 mistake. 

And oh, that $157.78 still hurts!

I had ordered a couple of new sweaters for fall and started beating myself up, saying, You need to send those sweaters back. You have to pay for that money. You know you have to.

But as I pray-cessed that with the Lord, I realized:  

• I don’t have to punish myself for making a mistake.
• I don’t have to “pay for it” with my new sweaters.

Although I am sad, I’m not beating myself up. 

I will work through this mistake with the Lord.

And that’s a victory!

Debra sent this message a couple days later:

I just have to share this with you!

I just got a notification that a package was delivered on my front porch. When I opened the door, the first thing I saw was a heart-shaped leaf on the welcome mat.

The package turned out to be the sweaters I’d ordered, and the heart felt like a hug from my heavenly Father saying:

“I love you. Enjoy your sweaters, beautiful daughter.” 🥹