Nothing is too hard for the LORD (not even the consequences of my foolishness)

I had graduated from university and began working. I was focused on paying other big bills I'd committed to and had let my student loan slide for a while. Under the terms of the loan, I was exempt from starting to make repayments for at least two years. That time was up and in my negligence, though I had made a few relatively 'small' payments I had forgotten about it for the most part. Until the notifications started coming in the mail. In fact, I was notified that I would be required to go into the bank to "convert" the loan. I did not understand what that meant. My father insisted I didn't have to. He understood how loans worked because that's how he and my mom built our house. In fact the same bank was always offering him more credit based on his superb track record for repayment. I showed him the notice and he still insisted I didn't have to. My father was my guarantor who co-signed for me. His assets were my loan collateral. I was freaking out. He was not budging and refused to waste time to go with me to the bank. I thought he would need to be there.

I psyched myself up and went to the bank on my own. I waited for a very, very, very long time. Finally when it was my turn, I was told that I needed to go with my guarantor to the branch where the loan was made. I was miffed but returned home to let my father know he was wrong. I was getting anxious and I started praying earnestly to God to work it out.

I took time off work again and met up with my father to go to the bank. After a very, very, very long wait - in fact we arrived in the morning and were attended to near to the closing time - our number was called. My father was irritated and kept complaining about his day being wasted. We sat down with the loan officer assigned to us and he called up the records. My father asked about this new term, 'conversion' and the officer told us that it was a new procedure. Student loans which were granted with special terms and reduced interest until now, would now be required to be converted to the terms and conditions of a commercial loan. This was a new system the bank came up with to increase profits because the government had instituted free university education for all citizens after I graduated. No longer was the bank getting an influx of new undergraduates needing student loans. When calculations were made, my new debt amounted to twice as much as I had borrowed and the interest rate was absurd. After my father got over the initial shock, he began to rant and rave. His loud talk about how absurd this was drew stares from all around. I tried to quiet him without success. I was faced with my irresponsibility because I had the means all along to repay the initial principal amount. My father made talk of this loudly and openly too. I was humiliated. And as he went on and on and on, I broke down. The loans officer actually felt sorry for me and tried to quiet my father. He spoke kindly to me. My father told them he would come back to see him after he had talked with my mom (he was reluctantly deliberating whether they should give me the amount from their savings so that I would not go into this many thousand of dollars of debt). As we left, me choking back tears and enraged at my father for his humiliating behavior, the stares and whispers of everyone on that side of the department floor was too much. When we got outside, I didn't say a word to my father. I just kept walking.

I was brimming with anger like I very rarely experience. I had never had an experience like that in my life. Although my father had subjected my siblings and I to many embarrassing experiences in our childhood, this was too much. And I was no longer a child. I called my mother and managed not to break down into tears on the phone. I told her I wanted nothing to do with him again. That I would never ever go anywhere with him again. That he had just ranted and raved in the bank and humiliated me for no good reason. That he had gone on and on and made us (me) the talk of the bank. My mother could tell from my voice that it was serious and she tried to console me down. "You know he doesn't know how to talk to people when he gets upset. Don't bother about that. Try not to pay attention." I was angry at my father, not at God, but I wondered, LORD why did you let me go through that?

My father had halted the conversion process and signing of papers by asking the loan officer if he could see him another day but I still didn't know what would happen.  I just continued to pray...and dread having to go back to the bank. Daily. Earnestly. And yes, I had to confess to God that it was my own negligence that had got me into this mess.

One day I came home from work and mom told me that my father had gone back to the bank, alone. He asked to the see the same loan officer. The 'loan officer' told my father that he was in fact the Manager of the loans department. Yes, I was shocked too. He had just been assisting the other staff on a busy day when we had been there before. He remembered the previous meeting well and he clearly still felt compassion for me and the humiliation I had endured. He had lowered his voice and told my father that, on the condition that he would never disclose it to anyone (he said he could lose his job), he would let my father know that the conversion was a new bank policy but it was not legally binding. Customers did not know that of course. He told my father to leave without converting the loan. And so he did.

It was a jaw dropper for me. God had fixed it in the most unlikely way. My debt now stood at the remainder of the principal amount. God had rescued me from the consequences of my own foolishness. Not in the way I expected, but definitely so that I learned a lesson, and grew in dependence upon Him in situations where there is no plan B.

And that wasn't all He did. I had continued to pray because I was now eager to repay the loan and get it off the bank's records. I did not have savings to cover it. I prayed some more. Just about one or two weeks later my mom received a check for repayment of a loan she had made to my older sister and her husband quite some time before. She decided to lend me the money she had received to repay the entire amount of my loan. I would now only have to repay my mom for the amount of my student loan balance, in whatever time I could, at no interest. Wow. I used this grace offered me and set about right away to repay my mom a fixed monthly amount when I received my salary.

I've thought on this entire experience many times since then and sometimes I even laugh. I laugh with sheer amazement at how God worked this out. How he turned my father's ultra-humiliating outburst for good. How he used it to stir compassion in the bank manager's heart. How, in fact, he had even arranged so that the long wait on the busy day when we first visited, made it necessary for the manager to assist the customers - not just a loan officer as we had thought. How he had ordered every minute of that day at the bank so that our number took us to that particular desk to be attended to. How he had brought the repayment check for an entirely different loan just at the right time to my mom, and moved her heart to lend it to me. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to the LORD. He rebukes, he teaches, he forgives, he helps us. He always comes through for those who trust in Him, who make their petitions before Him earnestly and give Him no rest.

But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
say continually, "Great is the LORD!"
As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God!
Psalm 40:16,17

Look at what the LORD has done!

God has done too much for me in my short and tumultuous life to be silent about - especially when there is such a wide forum for His praise at my fingertips! This is another post specifically intended to give God thanks for the steadfast love and abundant mercy He's poured out on me. It is my 'testimony time' of sorts. It is my hope that you will  marvel at His excellencies and be stirred to trust in Him, and His word, more than ever before.