Tithing

Up until the last year or so, whenever I would pay my tithing, I would suddenly have more--the Lord made it easy for me to gain a testimony of tithing. One of my favorite things about tithing is that it's one of the most straightforward commandments out there--give 10% of you're income to God and God will bless you with more than you gave. If you want to gain a testimony of God, pay tithes to him and see what happens. It's one of the few commandments that you can live 100% and KNOW that you're living it 100%.

This last semester changed my perspective on tithing though. No, I take that back, it didn't change it but rather added to it.

I was SO poor. Each paycheck had to be carefully budgeted out or I wouldn't have enough. And each time I would hope to have a little extra dough the next time payday rolled around...but I never did.

One day my sister Janessa was telling me how blessed she was because she paid tithing. She currently has a full scholarship for school AND gets PELL grants on top of that--basically, she gets paid to go to school. It really upset me because it made me wonder what I was doing wrong: I was paying tithing but couldn't figure out why I was so incredibly poor. And then several days later it hit me: you are poor but you are making it because of tithing: your bills are paid, you have food to eat, a place to live, and clothes to wear. I know that it was tithing that made that possible. I was making so little and every penny had to be budgeted but it always played out that there were enough pennies to meet every necessary expense that came my way.