Credit Card Debit

My wife and I have both been out of work for three years and are drawing my pension and my wife's social security. We have two credit cards. One has a $6K balance and a 4.9% interest. We're not concerned about that one but we have another that is of great concern. Currently this second card has a balance of 12K. We have never been late on a payment and are now struggling to make these payments every month. When we first charged the original purchase it was $7000 and we have not charged anything else. The original interest rate was 6.9% and we were ok with that. For the past several years the interest rate was raised the 17.99%. As a result are going backwards and unable to catch up with the interest. We tried to negotiate a lower lump sum payoff balance and the bank would not deal. They said that if we were 4 months behind they would talk. We would like some biblical counseling on what to do and want to do as God would have us to. We have $7,000 in cash and would love to negotiate a lower payoff balance and pay the card off. We were wondering if we should follow the banks thought and go delinquent for 4 months and use your company to negotiate a payoff balance. Can you negotiate a lower payoff balance without going delinquent since we have $7000 in cash or do we just pay the full inflated balance. We are just furious that the banks can gouge people and raise interest rates thereby putting the balance payoff out of reach. We are hoping you can help give us some guidance.

Tony & Karin Souza