Home Improvement Part II

When my husband and I decided to work on our finances and begin tithing out 10%, we noticed great blessings along the way. Just as we were on this "high" of giving and feeling great about it, our refrigerator broke. Not good. Luckily, we have a spare refrigerator in the garage and we were able to save our recently purchased groceries over to the other refrigerator before they spoiled. This was the second time our refrigerator went out so taking a chance on fixing it again and spending another $300 when we had just fixed it about 6 months prior didn't seem so logical. Would it continue to break on us? My dad suggested we purchase a new one, but that didn't seem fitting as we were working on knocking out our debt. We had some money set aside which we had planned on paying off a credit account at Fry's before our 12 month interest free promotion ended. We ended up paying off the account and decided that while our initial goal was to close the account, if we did the same thing where we paid off the balance before interest kicked in, then we would be OK. While we were looking at the refrigerators, we ended up not only picking a new refrigerator but a new stove, microwave and dishwasher! I was so excited. Unfortunately, we had to wait for our account to post the deposit which would give us the necessary credit allowance to make the big purchase. This turned out to be a long drawn out process that left us with a very bad experience at Fry's. The story is too long to tell and every time my husband relives it, he can't help but get frustrated and annoyed all over again. Let's just say: bad communication, very bad customer service and a lack to make things better. Their loss because our business went elsewhere. During these two weeks where we were getting the "run around" from the staff at Fry's, we became disappointed. At one point it seemed like everything that could go wrong went wrong. But you know we just kept saying "God has something better in store." And what do you know – He did! I know this is just a situation of dealing with bad customer service but I think the power of positivity comes in handy when dealing with any type of situation. We couldn't get down. We knew this would happen for us, we just had to see what God was teaching us through this experience and remain faithful that God would bless us with the ability to get our new appliances.

And we did. What I learned through this experience is that yes God will shower his blessings for following in obedience, but we must remain faithful during those times when we feel taken back. When you remain faithful, God will open doors when man blocks it. So here we are, months later after our decision to follow through with tithing and we are seeing the blessings come to life.

Here are the pictures of our kitchen when we first moved in.

Here are the pictures of the kitchen prior to our new appliances.  You will notice we purchased a new stovetop and ventahood as well as new lighting fixtures and new cabinet handles.  We also removed those doors by the refrigerator and we painted the walls and added mini blinds.

In order to get our kitchen updated, we had to remove some cabinets to make room for the stove.  Thanks to my husband and father in law, we were able to do this on our own without hiring someone to do the job for us.  

And here is our new kitchen. I am so very happy. Just to let you know when we first moved into this house, the kitchen was my least favorite room of the house. I had always wanted a big open kitchen and I ended up with this kitchen that I disliked. Yes, it's still not the big spacious kitchen that I dreamed of, but it has made a big improvement and I'm pretty proud of our little kitchen now.