March Update #1 and Novena to St Joseph

Learn more about St. Joseph Altars here.

Unfailing Petition to St. Joseph:

Holy St. Joseph, Spouse of Mary,
be mindful of me, pray for me, watch over me.
Guardian of the paradise of the new Adam, 
provide for my temporal wants.
Faithful guardian of the most precious of all treasures,
I beseech thee to bring this matter to a happy end,
if it be for the glory of God,
and the good of my soul.
Amen.


Note for all my Protestant friends: When Catholics pray to the Saints, they are asking them to intercede to God on their behalf.  We believe that the Saints in Heaven spend their eternity praying for us still here on earth and glorifying God with praise.

Go FundMe Update:

Thanks to your donations we have been able to keep the lights, heat and internet on at our store.  Thanks to two small loans from family members we were also able to pay for the past two months of our overdue "health care sharing co-op" (basically a version of health insurance for me and the children) and to keep the lights on at our house.  Thanks to that money we were able to pay the over $2,000 in loan payments that were due for the past two weeks.  We still have $3,000 in loan payments and past due bills still to pay for March alone and we are still waiting for the appraisal for the house to come through to find out if we can get a loan to help keep the store open.

Any money you can donate towards the Go FundMe will help to keep us open.

As for overcoming obstacles, yesterday the motor blew out on the heater/ac unit for our store.  Thankfully the repairmen were able to find a new motor within an hour's drive of our store and get things fixed, but that was another unexpected $500 (which is my deductible for every repair needed at the store.)

Some people have inquired about my refinancing options.  Unfortunately corporate does not have a national program set up for our stores to refinance.  I have to find a local source.  I am on bank #6 trying to make it happen, but every month that this situation stretches on the credit rating keeps getting lower and lower and more and more bills don't get paid on time or at all.  Yet, I can't file Chapter 11 bankruptcy because I am not a multi-million dollar company.  It costs almost $30,000 to file that type of bankruptcy and we only owe $75,000 and most lawyers don't do Chapter 11's for that "small" amount of money because Chapter 11's take so much time to litigate.....If I file Chapter 7 bankruptcy on the store then I lose my house (because the house anchors the store) and I can't sell the house because the house anchors the store.....so I am in this horrible catch-22.  It kills me to hear the local accountant tell people over and over again that "the store is solvent if we can get rid of the rapid finance repayments of $3500 per month that is dragging the store under (plus the other debt that Jason left me with)."  So far we have made it ten months.  We are so close and just need a little more time to save the store and keep the family home.  Thank you for your prayers and donations.  If you can help again, please donate and please help spread the word.  Most of all just keep us in your prayers!

St. Joseph Altar and Novena

A year ago March 10th my life began its radical change.  Without going into details of the case that need to remain private, a year ago March 10th I did what had been previously unimaginable to my life and asked my then husband to move out.  Per my devotion to St. Joseph I then added "protect my family and help me figure out my marriage" to our novena to St. Joseph.  March 18th is the feast day of St. Joseph, the protector of the Church.  As the weeks passed through March and April last year, St. Joseph and God worked behind the scenes leading to my now ex-husband and ex-employee's arrest before evidence could be destroyed.  I wrote the following testimony last July in my thanksgiving tribute to St. Joseph:

"As many of you know I have a strong devotion to St. Joseph.  In fact I have blogged about our annual St. Joseph Altar dinner that we give every March in the past.  Jason was first arrested on May 1st, which is the feast day of "St. Joseph the Worker."  May is also the month of Our Lady St. Mary.  (Several different friends pointed this out to me a few days after he was arrested.)  Jason not only helped me honor St. Joseph with preparing the large St. Joseph meals, but he had of his own volition written a prayer and vow to St. Joseph to take care of me and his stepchildren at our wedding as St. Joseph took care of St. Mary and Jesus.  We now know he was stealing from our business, which is the exact opposite of being like "St. Joseph the Worker."  He also said honored Mary under the title "Our Lady of Victory."

This past winter Jason kept saying how he wanted to sell our rental duplex, that it was too stressful for him to maintain (even as he had moved his mistress into it and was paying her bills there.)  I had bought a statue of St. Joseph to put inside the duplex (NOT to be buried in the ground as some people do).  He never took the statue there, so in April I pushed it into his hands saying you can't ask St. Joseph to intercede for the selling of the duplex if you don't take St. Joseph to the house for it to sell.  So, he ACTUALLY took the statue of St. Joseph to the duplex, but didn't put it in the empty unit.  He actually took St. Joseph into where the mistress lived.  Eight days after the two of them were arrested, my friends helped me search the unit where she lived (that I am the landlord of) so that we could hand over her electronic devices to the sheriff and we found St. Joseph hidden in a kitchen cupboard.   St. Joseph is known as THE TERROR OF DEMONS.  No wonder they were thankfully finally caught by the Sheriff due to an anonymous tip.  YOU DON'T MESS WITH ST.  JOSEPH.  Jason actually took the statue of one my patron saints-THE SAINT THAT HE HAD VOWED TO BE LIKE-into the place where he was committing adultery.

A few days later, a large box arrived at the store as I left to go to his bond hearing (where the bond was lowered.)  The next day one of the employees reminded me that the large box sitting in the store was mine.  Inside it was a statue of the Holy Family THAT I HAD ORDERED BACK IN FEBRUARY FOR OUR ST. JOSEPH ALTAR DINNER.  The statue arrived three months later on the day of Jason's bond hearing as one more reminder from God that St. Joseph is interceding for me and the children in heaven.  It comforted me so much that I am not even annoyed about how long it took it to arrive.  Obviously it came right on time!!!"

I am starting my annual novena to St. Joseph.....praying for his continue guidance of how to provide for my family.  As I say over and over again, every day that my store is open is a miracle.  Over the course of the past year I have truly learned what it means to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread."  St. Joseph has protected my children and myself, most likely in ways we don't even know.  People who host St. Joseph Altars say that once you start, you never stop.  Even though we don't have a lot of money...even though I have to work on the 18th....and my kids' activities fill the weekend schedule and then we have the start of Holy Week, I have decided to host a frugal small St. Joseph Altar at work to honor St. Joseph.  There will be minestrone soup, bread, cake and pizzelles.  Please feel free to visit our store and small altar next Friday, March 18th from 11am-5:30pm.

I have added all the prayer intentions of anyone who has "prayed for us past, present and future" to our novena.  I have also added the intentions of anyone who has donated to help cover our bills (past, present, future as well.)

If you would like to pray the novena to St. Joseph with me then please pray these prayers.

Please see my past posts regarding two of our past three St. Joseph Altars:

2013 St. Joseph Altar

2014 St. Joseph Altar

St. Joseph: Protector of the Holy Family and my own!

Words cannot express how much your words of kindness, donations of money and constant prayers mean to the children and myself.  The grace that we have been given to survive this situation all comes from God blessings your prayers made on our behalf.

May you have a blessed end to your Lent and a sweet start to your spring,

Stephanie