Wow. Just, Wow!

I have to share this very awesome answer to prayer!

A couple of weeks ago I shared that we discovered we were going to owe $6,500 on Emily's college bill.  We don't have $6,500, nor can we afford it even with the payment plan offered.  So what we decided to do was to apply to this new scholarship available to residents of New York State called the Excelsior Scholarship.  It basically offers up to $5,500 to college students attending New York State schools.

However, there is a catch.  You have to commit to staying within the state after graduation and working within the state for the number of years you receive the scholarship.  Emily was not happy because she does not want to stay in the state after graduation.  However, when she discovered that it was a choice of not accepting it or not being able to go to college this year she unhappily agreed.  I told her that 4 years is a long time to possibly have a change of heart and at the end of her college term if she really didn't want to stay in the state, the scholarship converts to a zero interest loan which she would have 10 years to pay off.

The very next day we discovered that she was approved for the scholarship which I thought was a great answer to prayer.  Every day since then I've been going onto her account to see what they awarded her so I would know what we would still owe. Summers are very tight for us, especially as the summer goes on so I knew we would be really tightening our belts.

This evening I went online to discover that the balance went from $6,500 to -$3,000 because they applied all the grants and scholarships she had received, as well as the two federal loans.  WOW!!!  This means two things - 1) she doesn't have to take out the two federal loans since she doesn't need them for this semester and 2) she hasn't even received the Excelsior Scholarship yet, and since she won't need it, they won't award it.  And that means my sweet daughter can stop teasing me that I sold her out to New York State! LOL!!!   

We serve an awesome God!  Just this morning Dan prayed that God would work a miracle and yes, He did!

I wanted to share it here because I hope it's an encouragement for some of you who are struggling too.  He provided for us far above and beyond what I thought.