Faith

Warning - this is a long read because I'm going to be a little more transparent than I usually am.

What does faith mean to you?  Websters defines it as confidence or trust in a person or thing.  The "thing" that I have confidence or trust in is God.  Faith also means taking a risk and letting God show you who He is and what He can do.  The Bible describes faith in Hebrews 11:1- "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." This means we are to depend on Him to show us the way, protect us, and that if we are in His will, He will provide the necessary resources for us even when we can't see how it will happen.

Over the past couple of years we've been seeing a lot of areas in our lives that require faith.  When I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis after the birth of my first child, we had to have faith that medicine would relieve the pain and stop joint damage.  The medicine is working well for the time being and I've even been in remission once.  We had to have faith that the surgery and radioactive iodine treatment I received for my Thyroid Cancer would "cure" my cancer.  It did.  We had to have faith that David's leg and ankle would heal after being run over by a dump truck in a bicycle crash. (That's another long story.)  It's slowly getting there. We had to have faith that it was going to be ok to put my children in public school when so many of our friends are doing different things.  It's been terrific because that is what He has called our family to do.  Then, we had to have faith when my husband recently changed jobs - not once, but twice in the last year and a half.  The good news is that God was looking out for us in ways that we could not orchestrate ourselves.  David loves his new job and it's a perfect fit for him and our family.  The bad news is it doesn't provide all the fancy benefits of a corporate environment and the security of a salary. But we have faith that this is where God wants him now and He will provide the necessary means for our family.

Faith is what we didn't have a few years ago when we started researching adoption.  I also believe this was Satan trying to get in the way of a good thing.  We were blown away by how much it cost, especially when you choose International Adoption.  These are mainly fees to obtain certain documents, get passports, pay agencies, lawyers, travel costs, etc.  They all add up and we became intimidated.  We decided to put it aside, we would rather pay for more important things like a 32ft 5th Wheel Camper and truck to pull it.  Looking back I just see our unfortunate sinful nature called selfishness.

Then we took Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey and our lives CHANGED forever.  He's not only an entertaining teacher, but what he teaches is completely different from how the world operates and how we use to think about money.  Our biggest lesson was just because you can make the "payment" on something, doesn't mean you should buy it.  You should save up and buy it in cash.  This completely took the pressure off me when my husband wanted to know if he could buy another toy motorized vehicle.  Now all I have to say is, "would Dave Ramsey approve?"  Whewww... love that man...after God and my husband of course.

I'll start this section by saying, if God wants you to get rid of something, HE will enable you to get rid of it fast! When we took Ramsey's Financial Peace University course we were gearing up at the time to change from David working at a very comfortable paying job to going into a less predictable paying job. With Ramsey's lessons in our back pocket, we sold the camper and the truck that pulled it within 3 weeks back in 2009 when the economy seemed to stop.  Houses weren't selling so how would our portable house sell?  I started couponing like crazy to save TONS of money on our food thanks to this awesome lady.  I took my daughter out of pre-school and gymnastics and taught her at home to save the $200 a month. Well not the gymnastics part, unfortunately the shower rod, coffee table, and rings in the backyard were not the best equipment to practice on.  Our vacations consist of driving to my grandmother's house near Branson, Missouri where we can hang out on the beautiful lake and catch fish all day long.  We switched out my smart phone for a basic cell phone.  I also sold my beloved Honda Pilot because it was paid for, so we could use the extra cash to live on without going in debt and bought a 1997 beater Suburban.  Now if my kids trash it, I don't get mad.  This has all required a little sacrifice on our part, but the peace it brings our family is priceless.

What I just told you may sound like we're cheap to some, crazy to others, but hopefully not prideful.  We're not special, and certainly not above anyone else.  Just want to help encourage others.  That's what is awesome about God - His grace is extended to everyone - regardless of our background!  We also have motivation.  Motivation to start putting even more in our retirement fund, hopefully one day paying off our house early, and build an emergency fund that makes things like unexpectedly losing your job easier to weather.  We didn't like David suddenly losing his job, but it was not a crisis.  We also had motivation to start saving to enable us to ADOPT and one day be able to give more freely to help others do the same.  I have to be honest, we don't have all the money for our adoption, but we have faith that this is the right time and that God was preparing us and our finances in order to move forward.  We have faith that this will become HIS story on the work HE did in our lives and our children's lives.

Is there a story you would like to share where faith played a role or tell us where you would like to have more faith in your life?