My Blue Ribbon Miracle

Taxes.

Nobody really enjoys paying them.  But when my spouse came to me and said, “It looks like we’re going to owe about $1,200 or more,” it was like an elephant landed on my chest.

BlueRibbonI was self-employed, and my spouse just received a massive pay-cut after changing jobs.  Part of it too, was my reluctance to always pay my quarterly taxes on my self-employment income, and to let my spouse, the “money minded” one in the relationship to handle the finances.

$1200 was going to hurt.  A lot. 

Earlier the same week I had received a letter from Marilyn Hickey Ministries, as I had just purchased a CD set on the topic of The Names of God.  It was a letter encouraging me to consider becoming a partner in their ministry, and to join at the $30 per month level.

Marilyn also included a simple, small, blue ribbon in the letter, which she described as a “blue ribbon for your miracle of faith.”  She had mentioned how in Jesus’ time, people would only need to touch parts of his garment as he walked by, and miraculous healing would take place in their lives.

“I would like you to pin or attach this blue ribbon to your own garment, and wait for your miracle of faith to happen,” Marilyn stated in the letter.

After leaving the letter out on the table for a while, thinking, “Oh I’ll get to this sometime,” somehow in the middle of the night I awoke and felt compelled to take Marilyn’s ribbon and tie it to the belt loop of the pants I would be wearing.  I prayed that night saying, “God, we need a miracle to pay this tax bill, and I trust you will deliver it.”

After three days, I realized that I had lazily not included the home office tax deduction in my Schedule C form.  Not only that, but I didn’t include it for the year previous either.  So for the next day, I lived and breathed calculating the past two years’ home office deduction, and filled out amended tax forms for both Federal and State taxes for 2013.

The final result was a tax bill of just $379 for 2014, with refunds totaling over $700 from the previous tax year.

The very next day, I signed an agreement with a new client who would pay me $500 in advance to design a web site for them.

In just four days, we went from owing $1200 to me easily writing a check for $379 for our taxes, and knowing that I would receive $1200 in the near future, based on my new client and the refunds from previous years’ amended tax.  For me this was my miracle – even if it was just a “miracle of changing my mindset” and finding another solution I might not have noticed previously.

Ironically, when I sat down to write the check for our tax payment, I reached for my belt-loop to find Marilyn’s blue ribbon.

The ribbon was gone.

At some point this ribbon had untied itself from my belt-loop.

My first check, written before my tax payment,  was $30 to Marilyn Hickey Ministries.  I continue to support her work today as a partner.

For more information about Marilyn Hickey Ministries, visit http://www.marilynandsarah.org/

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