More Details!

We have received two responses from people:
1. That's such a great thing you will be truly blessed when you are debt free
2. YOU ARE CRAZY along with a dumbfounded look, like they can't even imagine what being debt free would feel like.

We have also heard lots of stories of people making other sacrifices to help them get debt free, or families setting up goals to be come debt free. We also got a call today from a friend and their family is doing the SAME THING! 2 year plan to live with the parents and be debt free! The blessings that will come of this will be amazing, being able to use our time to serve God and build relationships with a more focused effort.

I have a lot to learn about my faith and i think this is the perfect journey that i need in order to get my spirit set straight. We are selling many of our things giving up our worldly possessions our culture status of owning a home. Its a hard concept for others to grasp, its even hard for me at times. This time of year is the time of year I love our house the most, everything is green, the backyard is beautiful, everyone is extra friendly because we have all been locked up for the past 6 months, the kids love playing with the neighbors, the weather is perfect hammock weather...its so hard to think about giving this up, but what we are giving it up for is more time to serve God and building relationships more time as a family, more time to spend with friends, creating hobbies we enjoy as a family, watching our kids grow and being present in their lives instead keeping up with the Jones'.

As a society we have a problem with contentment, we are always reaching for the next 'status': dating, married, kids, kids to be out of the house, bigger house, etc. it happens to all of us and we get sucked in. One of my favorite pages to follow on Facebook is becoming minimalist most of his points fit right along with my feelings and things i am thinking through as we journey through this. This is from the post linked above:

As a result, the average credit card holder now carries 4 different credit cards in his or her pocket. Shopping malls outnumber high schools 2 to 1. 70% of Americans visit a shopping mall each week. Televisions outnumber persons in American homes. Home sizes have doubled in the past 50 years. And consumer debt has risen to 35% of household income.

Will Rogers said it like this, “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”

just some things to ponder :)

There is a lot of energy spent on keeping up a home, keeping up with debt, keeping up with stuff. We are excited to see what kind of energy is freed up from making this change.

With my thoughts of today off my mind here are a few questions we have been asked:

Where will you work?
Same place! We are not leaving our current jobs, we will just be commuting. The commute will be about 40 mins.

Will it be hard?
Of course! There are lots of emotions that go into this decision. We are going against cultural norm and giving up the majority of our things, we are giving up our home and our comfort, what we have known for the last 7 years, the only home Morgan has known, we have wonderful memories of this home. We are going from 1800 sq ft to about 800 sq ft. 4 bed rooms to 2 bedrooms. One question we asked ourselves often was 'when isn't life crazy, when isn't life hard, we all have different paths God takes us down and no matter what it always seems a little crazy to other people. To us it was kind of a now or never type of thing, now or before life gets to out of hand. We don't want life to always be out of hand, we don't want life to always be crazy. We have 2 BEAUTIFUL children and if we don't make this change now we will miss them being little. We want to follow on Gods path and be able to follow him where he calls us, we know very well how life goes when we are not following him and we have chosen to make this decision to free us up from many things.

Will you buy another house? Time will tell, if God leads us. After we make our last payment we will be able to make better decisions, a lot can happen in 2 years so its in the cards, but we also are taking into consideration what God wants us to do with our time, keep up a house or serve him. Time and listening to God will help us answer that question.

What kind of debt do you have? STUDENT LOANS!! We are sitting about average for what most people have in student loans maybe a little less, no credit card debt a vehicle loan and personal loan (thanks Murphy for the last 2!)  We are in NO way in trouble with any creditors.We make all our payments on time and have no trouble with them, we just know that Murphy continues to strike when you are sitting with no savings, and we just can't continue to live in 'payment management mode' as i like to call it (managing payments and figuring out if you can afford anything else by adding another payment in).  One thing i have learned in talking to people about our situation is that when you say debt to some people they think...you are in trouble with creditors, to us debt just means debt we have student loans and personal loans that need to be paid off, no creditors.

How will Morgan respond? She thinks its cool that her and Jacob will share a room and that Grandma Sharon is building her a BIG room to sleep in :) she will love being able to see them a lot and i think she will love having more un-distracted time with us.

Have you listed your house?
Our house has sold! We are just waiting on the appraisal and inspection to be approved! When that comes through we will be out of the house by the end of June!


PS sorry for the lack of pictures i have lost the cord to the camera!

Live like no one else so you can live like no one else

We are in the middle of some big decisions and major changes. Anyone that is familiar with Dave Ramsey knows what the title of this post is all about and most of us struggle to grasp what that really is for our lives. We first took the Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace course about 6 years ago. We made some major changes adjusted how we were spending our money, started budgeting, took cash out, payed down some debt but we truly didn't grasp the "live like no one else so you can live like no one else concept" We canceled our TV for a while, went back to dumb phones, stopped eating out, taught the class a couple of times and changed our habits again but still didn't make a significant headway on our debt. In October 2013 Murphy got us good (Murphy's law - if it can go wrong it will go wrong) ...bathroom toilet leaked so we needed to tear out a portion of the sub-floor, and refinish the bathroom and Matt did an amazing job doing the majority of it himself (which saved a lot of money), the transmission went out in the Tahoe, Jacob was born in November and the Camry needed more repairs then it was worth and was not safe to haul a family around in any more. The only way we would have been able to avoid going further in debt is if we were on baby step 3 (save 3-6 months of income) but for the last 6 years we have been going back and forward between baby step 1 and 2 (step 1 $1000 in savings step 2 debt snow ball and pay off all your debt). 7 months after Murphy did his damage we have decided its time to "live like no one else so we can live like no one else"

We are selling our home, moving in with Matt's mom and step dad in Lake Preston and paying off ALL our debt in 2 years.

Yes you read that right. We are selling our home, moving in with Matt's mom and step dad and paying off ALL our debt in 2 years. Can you imagine being debt free in 2 years?! We are so excited to have that last payment within arms reach! Even with the adjustments we made before Murphy struck we couldn't see an end. THERE IS AN END IN SIGHT! Yes it will be a crazy 2 years we will have our own little area at Sharon and Mike's and the dogs can come with us, they have a few acres of land that the dogs will LOVE to run on. We will go from living on both our checks to living on one of ours with the other check going entirely debt.

Some maybe asking why not just rent in Brookings...If you live in Brookings you know the reality of renting in Brookings as a family is not cheap. There is no where in town we could rent for less then what we will be buying in gas to drive that wouldn't be a dump.

Some of you are thinking this is just to crazy, I could never do that!!! Others are jumping for joy for us to be out of debt in 2 crazy years!

We are selling our home and all the details of with who and what we are selling it for are yet to be worked out. Matt is working on that and of course we have looked into what Dave says and who is recommended by him in the area. We know that Volga is the hot place to be moving to and there are not many houses on the market right now plus we have an amazing location and even more amazing neighbors. (lets just say I am not letting myself think about leaving the neighborhood or it puts me in tears because we have been SO blessed to have lived here)

Its not all about getting out of debt. Its the freedom that we will have as we are working on this. Matt will be doing online course work during this time to get a degree through Indiana Wesleyan. We will be freeing up a lot of time for him to focus on school and also more time for us to enjoy our family, plus getting out of debt!

I am planning on posting more on the progress as we move along the journey, living minimlstly and sharing what God teaches us along the way.

Doing LOVE the wrong way

1 Corinthians 13:4-6

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.⁵ It does not dishonor
others, it is not self-seeking,it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Most people have memorized verse 4  

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 

But who knows what comes after that? This is one of the verses that Matt picked out for our family values so I posted it at work, and read it every morning……..but what stood out to me was NOT verse 4, but verse 5 the other day

 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 

What did that just say!? Did that just say that my love can’t be selfish? Well then! I have been loving Matt WRONG! My love is very selfish, I put way to many expectations on him, sometimes I don’t even know that I have put them on him. I keep record of what wasn’t done right, or the fact that I had to remind him about something. WHOA! I MUST stop those actions and live out verse 5 by not getting upset easily, by putting him first and not being selfish. Loving him as Christ loves me.

Why is it so hard to love my husband as Christ loves me? And why do I expect that from him but don’t give it to him?

Through our conversations I have realized that because I am loving him selfishly that he is more worried about meeting my expectations and not even giving him a chance to love me fairly because I have set so much out for him to do, always having a list of things that need to get done, that's not a fair way to love some one. He has always kindly mentioned that my love is conditional....i never thought it was.....until understanding that verse. Of course if the house is clean, Morgan is in bed on time, healthy, we are eating healthy- its easy to love. But that is not what it is about, that perfect storm does not happen often. 

My selfish ways need to be tossed out the window and smashed. I am doing my best to put Matt first and put myself aside, and just loving him for him and who i fell in love with when we started dating, why i even started dating him, before I went to Australia, I told my friends I wasn't going to date anyone unless it was someone special. Well he was surely someone special! He is the love of my life and i have been loving him wrong. I am speechless at the way God works, the blogs i come across, the people that cross my path, my friends, co-workers, how everything ties together, the conversations had that can bring all this to light and also help me start loving my husband the right way, giving him the respect he needs before he walks in the door, taking myself out of the picture. 

A few years back a group of women and I went through Praying Wives....i thought it would help Matt...WRONG! it worked on me more then him, it was such a powerful book to go through, but there are enough books on everyone's to read list so here are a couple simple things that can help us all love our husbands better....just by starting to pray for him, keep an eye open for how praying for your husband will affect you!

This was pulled off pinterest that i had to retype to print it:

10 Ways to Pray for Your Husband

I pray

For my husband’s relationship with God

That God would bless my husband

For my husband to be a spiritual leader for our family

For my husband to love me deeply

For my husband to have a heart for his children

For my husband to make wise choices

For my husband’s emotional, mental and physical health

For my husband to prosper at work

For my husband’s power to resist sexual temptation

That I will show my husband respect grace and kindness

My friend Karen received this from her mother-in-law I believe and posted it on facebook, I have printed this one off as well to keep handy

"Make me my husbands helpmate, champion, companion, friend, and support. Help me to create a peaceful, restful, safe place for him to come home to. Teach me how to take care of myself and stay attractive to him. Grow me into a creative and confident woman who is rich in mind, soul, and spirit. Make me the kind of woman he can be proud to say is his wife. I lay all my expectations at your cross. I release my husband of fulfilling me in areas where I should be looking to you. Help me to accept him the way he is and not to change him. . . I leave any changing needs to be done in your hands, fully accepting that neither of us is perfect and never will be. Only you lord are perfect and I look to you to protect us. Teach me how to pray for my husband and make my prayers a true language of love!"

 A Song I will often play when i need to be reminded of this is Love Like that by Dawna Johnson - check it out!  This concept of loving unselfishly not only needs to be applied to our spouses but to everyone we come in contact with. It is AMAZING what God can do when we set ourselves aside and love like he does. 

Control

We had planned on having Morgan stay with my parents a few nights at some point this summer and it worked out that we wouldn’t have daycare this past week so she has been in Sioux Falls all this week. It was much needed from all sides! She was excited to go, I was excited for a few quite nights and a chance to get some projects/cleaning done and go on a date with Matt. The past month we have been talking about what is our vision as a family, what are our goals as a family and I have personally been trying understand and figure out what my purpose and passions are. God has put Matt in an amazing position at Brookings Wesleyan Church giving him a chance to do what he is best at, when we were going through the journey to get to this point I told him once you know what God wants you to be doing it will be easier for me to know what I need to be doing, well I am still searching for it and it is long overdue.

I think I have been pushing it off and also pushing my faith on Matt and riding his faith saying my faith is strong as well. I came across this blog post-Fully Alive and feel like there are points of this that really stand out to me. 

Because I also have that need to want to have control over everything,

 I want to have everything in place, know what are plans are today tomorrow, 3 weeks, 5 months etc. I know it is not possible but I still want it!  How do you give up that control to God? I can read and read but the actions and truly pouring my heart into God daily is the difficult part for me. I try but I put cleaning before God and that is truly where I fall short. I need to give him more credit, that he can take care of it all. 

What would my stress look like if I put God before cleaning and everything?

From that blog one of the verses that stands out is from 2 Corinthians 12:9-10  “But he said to me, “My Grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.   

The bolded part is what stood out to me For the sake of Christ I am content when I am week, when I am insulted, when I fall upon hardships, when I feel defeated.  Matt left Wednesday night for a trip camping with the boys and I took Friday off to just enjoy a day. I have been so excited about this for about a month, knowing that I put this time off way too often. I had the perfect plan in place to get some quite time and actually think about our family goals and my personal goals. But I think I had some extra lessons that needed to be learned before I could get to that point.

Bare with me as I go through these few situations:

I was super excited to make mac and cheese for super Thursday night…..I didn’t have milk (annoying!).

My plan was to relax in my hammock most the day but for some reason I wasn’t up to it (super odd) so I decided to clean, rearrange the living room, realized I can’t have it the way I put it (disappointing!).

Vacuumed a ton and got to the stairs and it started to smell like I had been using it to long (grrr!)

Went to Wal-Mart today to get my allergy medicine I had 1 pill left so I planned to run into town just for that…nope can’t get them till tomorrow(dang laws, really discouraging!)

finally decided that I was ready to relax in the hammock went to get in it and the rope BROKE! (DEFEATED!)

That verse stood out before my Wal-Mart trip – boy is it standing out now!!! I need to let God be in control, I need to be content with hardships, weakness etc. I held it together until Wal-Mart told me I couldn’t have any more allergy medicine, but after the hammock string broke I felt like the night was over and my time to focus on my goals, purpose and passions was gone and I didn’t know the next time I would have a chance to think about it. After looking at the verse again….my heart is healed. My mind is clear I can think about it again. 

I have a HUGE issue with everything needing to be in place before I can have time with God. 

What I am realizing is that I am asking the whole world to stop, my house to be spotless, perfect drivers around me, my gas pump open when I need gas etc. you get the picture. Today has made it clear that I need to just be able to shut it off, the world won’t stop, my house won’t ever be spotless, some driver is bound to annoy me and it’s not my gas pump, there are 3 other pumps I can use!

Giving God full control can give me the peace I need to not worry so much to enjoy life a little more and also I think finding my purpose and passions will come easier. The lady in the blog mentioned 

"its only through a daily remembrance of what He has already done for me that is my only hope to continue experiencing His freedom. His power is True. And he is Growing me." 

Matt has a daily prayer or tries to get out to the 'garden' to get some time with God, but as a working Mom, wife, child of God i need to find that time in a to-go-box. Please pray for me though this journey and i will be praying for my friends that they can find this peace, this freedom that God does have to offer....

as long as we can give up one thing..CONTROL.

Nebraska and Kitchen

here is a quick snap shot of what we have been doing this summer

Morgan ready to get on the road - heading to Nebraska to meet Great Grandma and Grandpa

Playing with the balloons at Matt's step-brothers graduation in Loveland

Grandma Nancy was the best at playing with the balloons

Reading with Grandpa Steve

Checking out Great Grandma's house

Busy day at Great Grandma and Grandpa's!

Beautiful Nebraska Sunset

Great Grandma!

She thinks she is funny

Grandpa Steve

 

Grandpa Steve showing Morgan how to work smart phones!

A few weekends ago we took EVERYTHING out of the kitchen and put it all back...this will be happening with all the room in our house! i can't believe the weight i feel off my shoulders and also i am enjoying cooking again because i can find things and don't have to move so much around!!!

Morgan did a great job helping!

Our entire kitchen!

Eggs in a frame!

Missed the chance to take a picture of the pantry before - below is our pantry

Ahhh the after pictures!!!!

still need to paint the spike rack and measuring cup holder but at least its in working order!

Authentic Relationship

Over the last few months something that continues to creep up in conversations, actions of people, sermons, my inspiration calendar(S) is the NEED for real authentic relationships. Not just you are my friend on facebook, or we were friends in highschool, not the 'relationship' you can have with a book, or a favorite website or  technology. I am talking about the good ol' human relationship that God has blessed us with..from the beginning.  Where you can be TRULY your self with someone, not hiding behind who you want to be or who that person thinks you should be or how it was when you grew up but to show that you truly do struggle with some things in life and there are some things you excel at and to ask the question how did you deal with a situation in your marriage (because most likely someone else has dealt with something similar!).

The thing that breaks my heart is that so many people are blind to how important these relationships are, (i am no expert by any means but i am just starting to touch the tip of the ice berg) how we can go about our daily lives and think we have it figured out or that we have experienced most of what we will experience, and that no one else will be able to help. WRONG! there are so many people that are willing to help and willing to walk through things

"God teaches that absolutely everything in this life is about relationships, 

and our first relationship should be with him!"

What has the lack of good real authentic relationship caused in your life?
With God, for me not attending church really harden my hearts (not like it makes me hate life) just that i judge more, i find the negative faster, grace isn't as easy to give. When i lack that authentic relationship with God, i become crabby and i don't want to live life being crabby! Its way to short and i am overwhelmed at my blessings!

The fact that i haven't kept in contact with close friends from high school or college - eats me alive at times. If i would have understood a fraction of what i have learned so far on real authentic relationships i would have never let them grow distant.

The fact that of not having real authentic girlfriends for a few years how and hard it is to peal back my onion layers of things that i have always stuffed down inside and never talked about becuase i lacked real authentic relationships

I some times look to my dogs for that comfort, yes they help and they ALWAYS love me, but that doesn't help me grow in my faith, they help me throw pitty parties, they don't talk back to me and say how about looking at it from a different angle, maybe try this out. The truly only help my soul for a while.

What helps my soul is my conversations with those people that i have rare authentic relationships with where i can be raw and have a venting session and know that it was just a venting session and that the conversation will go no where and that even though i just vented it most likley isn't how i really feel, its just that i needed to get off my chest and no grudges will be held against me. That if a swear word comes out its ok, because i am a beautiful work in progress. I am so thankful for these relationships it brings me to tears at times because I don't know how I would do life with out them. ~God, my husband and girlfriends~

i am challenging my self along with anyone who reads this to seek out their real authentic relationship, its not like you can just pick up a new relationship, it takes trust, being vulnerable, and time to build these but the are so rewarding.

"Our God wants to heal the emotional area of our lives but many of us are afraid to open the lid on all the emotions we have carefully stuffed down for so many years"

With one of my best friends that has truly been a blessing-- we can both tell someone else (not that we would, but its the point of an authentic relationship) more about our hearts and our feelings then what they did last night or that they went to Sioux Falls last weekend etc (yea its great to know that stuff) but our relationship isn't based on the happenings of today its based on our hearts, our faith, how to be a better wife, mom, a child of God, all those things come first and if we get a chance at the end to talk about whats going on the weekend great but if not oh well. It hasn't been an easy road to get there but it sure has been a blessing to be able to walk through life and not just the happenings of life.

A while back i went through a phase where i wouldn't ask someone passing by "how is it going" because you never get a real answer! (well, one time i did-and it was a great convo with a friend) but as a society today we are truly scared to ask people how there heart is, what is really going on in your heart and to have the time to do that in this fast pace world is a scary thing, but the few times that i have slowed down and asked how is your heart have been so beneficial. There are times in conversations that i take the whole conversation time and and there are others that a friend will but when the other person is talking not only am i listening i am learning and growing by just listening to a friend share there heart and often times going i have had those feelings before or i can totally understand what they are talking about!

I fell i need to write a disclaimer...This topic has been laid on my heart many times and God has given me the gift to be vulnerable and to be able to open up, and because i have been willing to be vulnerable i have been able to grow and change into a better woman of God, a better wife, mom and friend. I don't have it figured out just some things that are on my mind, i feel like there is more brewing but the post is long enough already :)

One of the best gifts God has given us is Grace, grace to grow, grace to change for the better, not because we were bad or wrong but because we have learned new things, new things by being open to the change and open to learning.

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did. 

But people will never forget how you made them feel.

Guess i get really long blogs when i don't blog often :) Pictures to come at another time in the near future.

Friendships and faith

There is lots to share and little time to write it all out .....the chore list is long tonight....because i have some motivation. Laundry needs to be folded and put away, kitchen and living room picked up, 2 nights of bible study to do and blogging is the first thing i want to get done tonight since I have it done it is such a long time and i have some cute photos to share! For bible study i am going through James a Beth Moore study and all i can say is WOW! God is really teaching me and the class some amazing things, humbling things and really opening our hearts up to the hard things to hear but the things we most need to hear and adjust about ourselves. The other weekend I was able to attend the Her True Identity Conference here in Brookings and i was blown away by how God spoke to my heart through these women! Here is a small portion of my notes:

Why have meaningful friendships
1.      Help navigate through life
2.      Support you during wavering faith time
3.      Celebrate live victories and morn the losses
4.      To seek Gods will through study and prayer 

To be a good friend:

•  Get thicker skin
• Proverbs 17:9
• Don’t take things so personally and chose to believe the best
• Stop comparing and competing
• Galatians 6:4 | Proverbs 18:24
• Worry about yourself
• Be transparent
• John 15:15
• HAVE TO BE LOYAL
• Proverbs 16:28
• Would you share if they were right there – keep the filter ON!
• Invest your time in friendships

In order to be a good friend the relationship needs to be with God first and foremost!!

 That was just from the Friday night session! Whoa! what good stuff!  I was thankful that my parents were able to take Morgan for the weekend and give Matt a chance to relax and do what he wished while i was at the conference.  One thing Beth Moore has asked is

"When was the last time scripture changed you?"

 You can read the bible all you want and attend church, and bible studies but if it is not changing you for the better, helping you learn how to be a better person and heal the pains from the past you need to make sure you are doing it for the right reasons, make sure you are acting out your faith and not just soaking it in for your self, God wants us to pour out his love!!!

Here are some pictures of the last couple months!

 I need some sun!

 Morning cartoons with the Ask's!

 cute!

 watching the 5k

 Saturday Morning Cartoons!

 Ready for church!

 look at those curls! 

 Shes a climber!

 heading out for a ride with Daddy!

 trouble! - can't leave her alone for very long!

 Ready to go out to Oakwood

 Foggy over the lake

 hiking!

 break time

I hope everyone has a blessed Easter and you are able to take the time to remember that He is Risen!