Her Big Step of Faith Brought Huge Rewards

Tracy Phllips has always loved children, so she got a job as a childcare assistant and eventually became a daycare teacher, with her own classroom.

“To me, I had the sweetest room,” she said. “Because I had the little babies, and people would come in and say to me, ‘You have such a wonderful, warm, quiet, peaceful room.’” 

She was shocked, when after 19 years, she was told they’d have to let her go because enrollment was down. 

“It was really traumatizing to me because they were my babies,” Tracy admitted. “Who else is going to take care of my kids?”

Tracy also wondered how she’d pay her bills. Her unemployment check was only $194 a month, far from enough to cover rent, truck payments, credit card bills, and her outstanding personal loan. 

She recalled, “I'm getting phone calls from creditors, ‘If you don't make a payment, we are going to have to take drastic measures. We're going to have to legal cancel things.’ I just felt, ‘What is it? What have I done wrong?’”

Then, the pandemic hit, making childcare jobs scarce, so she started looking for jobs in caregiving. Tracy received no offers. “I felt like the more I tried, it’s like I kept getting hit harder and knocked down all over again,” she shared.

She visited food pantries, sold some jewelry, and got help with her utilities. Ultimately, she had to give up her apartment and move in with her dad.

Tracy confessed, “It was the hardest decision I ever had to make because I’d been on my own for so long. I just felt like I failed. I kept saying to myself, ‘Am I ever going to get back on my feet?’ And I just fell into a really hard depression. I even at one point wanted my life to be over. I didn't want to no more, and I felt like God couldn't use me, that I had failed him.”

She was surfing channels when she came across the 700 Club and watched a story about a woman very much like herself. “She was saying even though she didn’t have much, just giving and trusting God and giving to God and just seeing how her life was changing for the better for her,” Tracy explained. “Tears just start to flow and I realize I'm just still trying to hold on to what little that I have. And I'm saying to myself, ‘Tracy, trust Him.’ I’m just going to step out on faith and give.”

Through the years, she had occasionally given when she thought she could afford it. Now, with bills looming, she took her last $25 and stepped out on faith, giving to her church and to CBN. Not long after, she got a call about a caregiver position.   

“And it was like, ‘Yes!” she exclaimed. “I was so excited. I couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘Thank you God, thank you, thank you.’ I was so excited; I couldn’t believe it because it had been months before anybody called me.”

Tracy got the job. Her caseload grew and her salary went up. She received better benefits than ever before, and today, her income is 75% more than when she previously worked in childcare. 

“Everything I felt that I had lost, it's like God restored and I feel now so refreshed,” she said. “And every time I would give, I would go to church, I would write on the back of my tithing envelope, ‘Thank you Lord, thank you God,’ and I would put little scriptures on the back.”

Her tithe increased as she made more money and she continued to give to CBN.

She explained, “I see how they help families and children, especially the babies. I love to see the babies in gifts for how they make sure they're getting fed clean water, shelter, reading the word. I said, ‘You know what, that's the organization I want to be a part of.’”

Today, she’s paid off her truck and her personal loan, and her credit card debt will be wiped out within the next couple of years. Tracy said the key to her breakthrough was totally surrendering herself, and especially her money, to God.  

“I've learned in my life is to trust God in my finances,” she concluded. “Look at me now. I’m thriving. If He did it for me, He can do it for you. Stand on His word. Give and just watch God move in your life like never before. You will be amazed!”