I found this new YouTube Channel (Single Mom on a Farm) and website (singlemomonafarm.com) that I am loving! They are both from Marcie Holladay. She is a single mom of 10 children who lives on a farm in rural Virginia. She is living the dream I’ve had for years. That’s the dream of being out in the country with lots of children, living a simple life of reading aloud, minimal screen time, and interacting with nature a lot. I haven’t given up on my dream but at this point it’s going to have to involve my grandchildren or adoptees as I’m facing an empty nest in 3 years and don’t live in the country anymore. I’d like to again. Over four years ago I lived out in the country in AZ. I had the potential of having it be a farm but I didn’t get that far. Now I’m back in Utah in the city and still dreaming about a farm. At least a mini-farm where I have a garden, fruit trees, and a cow. I know chickens should be in my future but I’ve always been scared of them.

Anyway, some of the latest videos Marcie put out are these two videos below. The first is about money miracles. The second is about miracles that don’t involve money. So I’m sharing both with along with a list of my money miracles and a list of miracles that don’t involve money. I’d love to hear of any of your miracles in the comments below.

I just love how she ends the first video, with a testimony of a loving God who is our Father in Heaven. She testifies that God is real. He is a loving father. He cares about our finances and our groceries. “I know He whispers to each of us to share our money and spread it around,” she says in the video. She has seen people “pay it forward” to her like the guy who gave her $1200 for a new water heater (the money pictured at the top above), because he was paying it forward after someone gave him money when he needed it. Now he was in a position to share and he did because the Holy Spirit told him to help her. I just love that story so much because it shows how the Spirit works on strangers to help each other. I can’t remember if it’s in the first video or the second one, but she reminds us that we are children of God. Just like a good earthly father wants to give generously to his children, so does our Heavenly Father. That’s not to say that He gives us everything we ask for, because sometimes what we ask for isn’t what’s best for us. Just like a child sometimes asks for things that aren’t really for the best. Heavenly Father only ever gives us what is best for us in the long-term, for our overall joy.

In one of the videos, I can’t remember which, she likens our requests to a little two-year-old who tells people “At 2 o’clock you’re going to play with me right?” She says how can you resist that request (albeit, I might add, couched in a demand) when the child is good and compliant and you want to be with the child to play with him or her because it’s enjoyable? That is our Father is with us. When we are compliant and harmonious with good things He wants to give us more, as much as we can be wise with. He wants to bring us to His exalted level, as far as we are willing to go.

Here are some of my money miracles:

–Ever since my sister moved to Maine I have wanted to visit her. I have fantasized and dreamed about it for years, along with tacking on a trip to Boston and Concord MA to see the Little Woman home, Orchard House. Last spring, one of my sons drove out back East for a summer sales job and drove out of the way to see my sister in Maine. He got there in only 4 days! So that made me think I could do that. I started talking about that and found out my married daughter was interested in visiting too. The more I talked about it, the more she said she wanted to visit too, with her husband and two little boys. I worked out the distances and the stops for spending the night and put all the data on a spreadsheet. As I studied the data, I decided that I did not want to drive there in 4 days! I don’t have the energy of my 23 year old son to drive 10 plus hours a day and not fall asleep at the wheel, LOL. Besides, my husband wasn’t that interested in going, neither were my other children for various reasons, so it would just be my 14 year old son and me. The cost of gas made it cheaper to fly. So we were looking at paying for airfare and that would take some convincing of my husband to spend money on the luxury of spending money on a trip.

Then my married daughter offered to pay our way, with a bonus trip to New York City. She offered a trade: to pay our round-trip airfare if my 14 year old and I would babysit her children for a night and a day while she and her husband saw the sites and went to a Broadway play. Plus help entertain the kiddos on the rest of the trip, especially on the bus and plane. That sounded like a great deal to me!

I just got back from the trip a few days ago. It was so amazing! The photos on this post are from the trip. A dream come true! It was a trip of a lifetime! Except I don’t want it to be the only trip I take to Maine and New England. I plan on going back several times! The whole trip deserves several different blog posts because of all that happened. I hope to get those up by the end of the year, LOL.

-We’ve had some difficult financial times off and on through the years. When it has spanned a Christmastime, we’ve received money and gift cards on our doorstep so we could buy presents. One time I was feeling blue a few weeks before Christmas, wondering how we would buy gifts. Then a few minutes later a dear friend who lives out of state called up asking how we were doing moneywise and offered to send some gifts. I was so grateful that she was in tune with the Holy Spirit. We also even got a big package of gifts for our children once when we were doing OK financially.

-Somehow someone knew I wanted a magnetic message board for my kitchen decades ago and gave one anonymously to me for Christmas one year.

-With one of my husband’s unemployment stints, it started the week of Thanksgiving. Yeah, it’s not fun to be told the day before Thanksgiving that your husband lost his job. Anyway, because of lessons learned, we were prepared this time around! We had a three month supply of money saved up according to Dave Ramsey’s teachings. So we had a cushion to live on and savings for Christmas gifts too. We didn’t really need it, but someone in our church congregation anonymously gave us an envelope full of cash for Christmas. We decided to use that cash to buy a lifetime membership to Qube, a digital cash envelope system that can work as an app on my phone. You can learn about it here. So I was able get a Christmas gift that keeps on giving to keep us on track with our budget.

-When my oldest son was about 8 he hit a baseball into the neighbors’ window and broke it. We offered money to the neighbor to fix the window. He countered our offer with something else. He suggested that we fast and pray for him to make more money than he usually makes at his commission-based sales job to pay for the window. So we did that and he said that month he made a lot more money than he usually made.

-Once when my husband was unemployed, over 20 years ago when we lived in Provo UT as a young family, he got a job offer in Missouri. I really wanted him to say “yes” but he prayed about it and felt he should say “no.” He had been underemployed working jobs that didn’t use his J.D. degree for over a year. I was so desperate for a bigger paycheck. Then two days later his mom called and said she had been praying about where he should look for a job. She gave him a list of where to look. He called these places. Turned out one of them was hiring and he was able to interview the next morning. Then he got the job offer that afternoon! This was the Friday after the Tuesday when he said “no” to the previous job offer.

-My husband commuted to that job I just mentioned over an hour each way for 18 months while we saved money to buy a home closer to the job. During all that time we continued to live in my inlaws’ basement. It was a not fun time for me to have four children, being pregnant with a fifth, in a basement apartment with a tiny kitchen that had no windows, and no dishwasher. I really wanted my own home! I could barely squeeze my blossoming belly between the table and the countertop in the kitchen as I walked into that kitchen numerous times a day to do kitchen duty. My husband had a contract that paid about 3/4 of what we decided we could live on. Every month we fasted that he would make the money with non-contract work to make up the difference. We were blessed to get more money that way so we did eventually buy our own home after living there 18 months. At that point he could now walk to work in 5 minutes!

-When just my oldest child was out of nest in college and the rest of my older children all lived at home, we were up to our eyeballs in debt because of a bad financial decision. I started listening to Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover on audio. Because of this audiobook, I really really wanted to get out of a car payment on our minivan. We were paying $350 every month for this car. I listened to this book in the spring as I drove a teenage son to ballroom dance practice every week, 20 minutes from home one way. Every trip as I listened I silently expressed the lament that if only we could not have that car payment we would have $350 a month more in the budget. Well God heard this lament! The next fall, my teenage daughter was driving the same son to a meeting, and she got in a car wreck. Fortunately no one was hurt. The insurance money we got from the car accident was enough to pay what we owed on the damaged car, and buy a new-to-us used car to replace it. Problem solved! We no longer had a car payment! We haven’t had one since then as we have stuck to Dave’s teaching of only paying cash for a car. Which leads me to our next money miracle.

-Two Decembers ago, just two days before my mother-in-law’s funeral, I was sitting in my car minding my own business stopped at a red light, on my way to get groceries. Then a random stranger crashed into the rear of my minivan. Even though this was a total inconvenience, it was a huge blessing! This wrecked car was a different car than the replacement car I just mentioned. This car had a lot of problems, including the liftgate being broken, which is a major hassle when loading and unloading the car. We had to prop it up and open with a snow shovel we kept in the back of the car. I did not get hurt, but the car was totaled. We were able to get enough insurance money to replace it with the same kind of car (which I love-the best car ever-the Toyota Sienna) which had no problems with the liftgate, as well as heated seats! Yay! Once again because of God’s providence, another car problem solved! You can read more about that here, where I blogged about a few more little miracles.

-I’ve had a lot of miracles involving finding just the right clothing articles and other resources while out going to thrift stores. You can read those here.

-At the end of last December my husband got a job with much better pay, shorter commute, shorter work day, and every other Friday off. I blogged about it over here. I am still pinching myself about this job to see if this is true. It’s just such a better deal for us. It all happened so seamlessly. He was so sick of the previous job, working long hours in downtown SLC. He already had an interview for the new job lined up before he lost the previous job. Then he got the job offer right after he lost the old job. It just worked out so perfectly. We’ve had stretches of unemployment for months, even over a year, so this was just a dream transition, right out of a fairy tale storybook.

OK, some of my other miracles that don’t involve money:

-When I was in college at BYU, I decided I wanted to encourage my soon-to-be husband to date me. I told my roommate I would like to date him and we concocted a plan to ask out his apartment full of roommates to go out with our apartment of girls. So that’s how I got a date with him. Then I decided I wanted another date. Our student church congregation, called a ward, sponsored a Cinderella Ball. The plan was that all the girls would each put a shoe on a table when we had ward prayer on Sunday night. Then the guys would each pick a shoe, match it to the owner and take that girl on a date to the ball. I put my shoe on the table, walked away, and watched from afar. Along came my husband. He picked up one shoe, then another, then another. I sent out vibes telling him telepathically to put those shoes down. Finally he picked up mine! So we did go to the Cinderella Ball and had a lovely time together, including a moonlit walk after the ball, stopping at the playground of a school to swing on the swings and chat. Which leads me to the next miracle…

-After that date, I wanted to encourage him more. He was recovering from a heart-wrenching break-up, half-heartedly dating another girl. In fact, he had told his roommates that for the next girl he dated he wanted her to be someone who chased him. Little did I know! So I was sitting in my apartment living room after the above-mentioned date, wishing I could go out on another date with him. Then, I “heard” these words in my head, “If you will walk up to campus, to the Wilkinson Center (student union center), you will see him.” It wasn’t an audible voice, it was more like I just sensed the words in my head. So I obeyed the words. Just as I was approaching the stairs, past the cafeteria, who should come bounding through the doorway to the stairs, but my future husband? Of course I didn’t know at the time I would someday marry him. We talked, we walked, and he asked me out on another date. The rest is our history, 30 plus years and 7 children. Yesterday we celebrated 33 years of marriage!

-With each of my last 3 children, I really wanted each one to be born on a Sunday. I had had two on a Thursday, one on Tuesday, and one on a Monday. So around 37 weeks I started praying that each of those babies would be born on Sunday. Each one was. I was so grateful!

-When one of my family members was struggling with living harmoniously with God, I prayed that this person would have some humbling experiences. After two years of experiences this person was completely humbled and back on the path of living a Godly life. This person gave me not one but two birthday gifts last time I had a birthday. It is so much easier to be with this person now. We have had many meaningful conversations since then. I am soooo grateful for this. It was reading the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ that brought about the change in this person. That makes sense, since President Russell M. Nelson says that the Book of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ more than any other book. (See the talk here.)

Miracles can and do happen in this modern day and time!

I conclude with this scripture from the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ which testifies of miracles from Jesus. This is Moroni chapter 7 verses 27-33:

27 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven, and hath sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men?

28 For he hath answered the ends of the law, and he claimeth all those who have faith in him; and they who have faith in him will cleave unto every good thing; wherefore he advocateth the cause of the children of men; and he dwelleth eternally in the heavens.

29 And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men.

30 For behold, they are subject unto him, to minister according to the word of his command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness.

31 And the office of their ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfil and to do the work of the covenants of the Father, which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men, by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him.

32 And by so doing, the Lord God prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ, that the Holy Ghost may have place in their hearts, according to the power thereof; and after this manner bringeth to pass the Father, the covenants which he hath made unto the children of men.

33 And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me.