Month: March 2014

Books, Christianity, Finances, Marriage, Money, Prayer, Quotes

Money Update

Sally

I thought it might be good to check in with you all on how I’ve been managing the money thing. I gave up my credit cards a good week and a half ago and like any addiction it isn’t an easy thing to overcome. This is how I’ve done; I bought a pair of wedges (in a color I do not have), a bunk bed cot for my boys that I’ve wanted for camping (I’m going to give it to them at Easter), four pairs of jeans for my son who grows super fast, and a Vitamix (yes, I know). I have to give myself a definite D- because none of the purchases were pre-approved by my husband and because yes, I still have been employing my wily ways. But I don’t get an F because I didn’t use credit cards to purchase any of them. I have more work to do in this area but I’ve confessed so at least it isn’t something I’m hiding.

On a more positive note, my husband and I did sit down and have the “budget talk” and there were no temper flares (my husband), no flurries of tears (me) and no blame. I didn’t get defensive and he didn’t show signs of denial that it is all me and not him. It was just a straight up adult conversation where we both openly discussed our money situation and what our goals for budgeting should be. I agreed with him completely and I feel very comfortable with what my part looks like. For the first time ever in our marriage I have felt like we are on the same team moving toward the same end result. That feels so good!

Because of this iron clad budget I won’t have the wiggle room to go rogue like I sometimes do. If I were to continue to spend like I did last week we won’t be eating, so that makes the stakes really high. We are talking weenies and beans people! Funny thing is I love a challenge and this definitely will be one. I can’t wait to blow my husband’s mind by all the ways I can cut costs and put more money on the bottom line for our dream. I feel invigorated and motivated, like I can add value. I feel empowered. That’s what dreams and goals can do for you.

Mark Batterson’s book, The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears, has been one of the most faith inducing books I’ve ever read. There is so much to discuss from this book that I will have to come back to it many times as I blog. But one of the things Mark writes in reference to dreams and goals is this,

“When you dream, your mind forms a mental image that becomes both a picture of and a map to your destiny. That picture of the future is one dimension of faith, and the way you frame it is by circling it in prayer.”

He also writes,

“The simple act of imagining doesn’t just remap your mind; it forms a map. And that is the purpose of goal setting. If dreams are the destination, goals are the GPS that get you there.”

I can feel that map unfolding out before me and the dream coming into focus. But the best part is praying about it. I love how I can consult with God on these things and really lay them at His feet for approval or will or help or redirection. My husband has no idea that his dreams have been given up to God but the minute John asked for me to join him on a walk toward this specific dream of his, I invited God to direct and mold or even reconstruct that dream for His glory and purpose. I also asked God to protect our family from any snares of the devil or future hardship if these dreams are not appropriate for us. That is where the peace lies. I feel completely at peace with my role as the praying wife, my supportive spouse role and my role as contributing partner for this dream. Here is the gold; if this dream fails or blows up in our face, I’m completely at peace with that too. God is so good. He really does know how to bring peace that surpasses human understanding (Philippians 4:7) and He really will work all things together for our good (Romans 8:28). So, I’m back on track and really stepping out in faith that God is ultimately in control and I can feel free to continue to submit to my unbelieving husband in this way.

Books, Christianity, Friendship, Parenting, Pride

Self-forgetfulness

Sally

In the circles I run in, there is only one topic that is more taboo to discuss then even religion or politics and that topic is what school you think your children should attend.  This conversation gets under my skin every time.  I can get emotional, I can get angry, and I can get put off but worst of all I can get tempted to tell you exactly what I think about what you think.  The truth is it doesn’t matter what I think because there is no right answer.  What is right for you and your family is right for you and your family and what is right for me and my family is exactly that, right for me and my family.  It isn’t a one-size fits all equation.  So why do I tend to get so defensive and what can I do to be free of all that junk?

I feel like the core of this issue for me resides in pride.  It is born out of the need to compare myself to other people.  We want to feel superior thus leading us to try to make superior decisions in which we are hoping for superior outcomes.  Pride exists in the desire to be better or have more then the other person and for a lot of moms that desire plays out in our kids.  We want our children to prove our superior parenting styles and our above average intellects.

To be determined superior we would need a judge, or someone involved who is qualified to pronounce a “winner” in these sorts of controversies.  But there isn’t a human on earth qualified for this position because no human can look into the future and see exactly what impact a certain school is going to have on our little people or see how these little people will ultimately turn out as big people, and besides, there are so many other factors to consider that you would never be comparing apples to apples.  If I am seeking Jesus for guidance, I can trust that He will guide me and where He leads me is going to be different from where He leads you because I am me and you are you.

So, I believe pride is the culprit and our desire to compare ourselves to each other instead of allowing God to be the judge, which is our downfall.  In 1 Corinthians 4:3 the Apostle Paul has a very different outlook and I think if I can adopt it for my own I will be free of these prideful exchanges.  He says,

“I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.  My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.  It is the Lord who judges me.  Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes.  He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts.  At that time each will receive his praise from God.”

I have been re-reading Timothy Keller’s book The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness.  I say re-reading because this is one of those books I like to keep handy to help me get my head right every time I feel like the comparison monster is creeping into my heart (and this can be often).  He calls boosting our self-esteem a “trap”.  And I couldn’t agree more.  Timothy talks about gospel-humility and he says,

“True gospel-humility means I stop connecting every experience, every conversation, with myself.  In fact, I stop thinking about myself.  The freedom of self-forgetfulness.  The blessed rest that only self-forgetfulness brings.”

I want some of that!

Timothy Keller ties this back to what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians.  Paul seems to suggest, ‘I don’t care what you think and I don’t care what I think’ and (I might add) we both should only care what God thinks.  This needs to be my new motto.

This way of thinking could help me in so many areas of my life, especially when keeping up with the Jones’ is such a part of our culture.  Again, I do not want to be of this world and this world’s culture.  I want to follow Paul’s example and only worry about what God is asking of me, what God’s judgment of me will be.  I want to put my trust in God, knowing that He has full control over my children’s education and future.  I don’t need to be worried about any of it, nor do I need to be boastful or prideful and I certainly don’t need to be comparing my plan to yours.  I need to stop caring about what you think and stop caring about what I think but keep my goals in line with what Jesus thinks so that I can find freedom amidst these difficult conversations.

To all my friends whom I might have offended with my strong opinions, I apologize!

Books, Christianity, Finances, Marriage, Money

The Money Thing

Sally

Not unlike many marriages, mine suffers from money conflict.  Depending on which one of us you talk to, you could get a whole lot of evidence against the other on who the culprit is.  But, I really want to stand before you in truth and the truth is my husband bleeds green for me.  I have really struggled with getting on the same page with him on how our finances should be handled (or in my case not handled).  I have really opposed John in saving, waiting and focusing on the long term.  Not only have I been at odds with him in these matters – I have been at odds with Him too.  This is no small thing.

I have known women who find themselves controlled in their marriages by money.  I have known women who don’t feel worthy of spending money on themselves.  Sometimes my own spending has been just pure passive aggressive behavior.  The problem can be especially acute to the stay-at-home-mom types, like me, who don’t have a paying job that would help quantify what their net worth is in the financial world.  Because of this I have gone to extremes. I spend money when I feel like on whatever I feel like and take little heed to what my husband thinks about it.  Most of the time I feel justified.  But am I?

I really have a desire to be in a deeper relationship with my man.  Not just a good functioning relationship but a “cleaving” type relationship.  My dictionary says that “cleaving” means; 1. to adhere; cling to 2. to be faithful and “adhere” means;  1. to stick fast; stay attached 2. to give allegiance or support.  I haven’t even mentioned what the bible says about cleaving.  Cleaving could also point a little to submission.  Yes, I said it. Because it would seem that with out yielding and submitting I am not truly giving my support and allegiance.  Question; Am I submitting myself to my husband’s authority in this matter? Answer; Most definitely not.

This is what my Heavenly Father has been working in me; the desire to be able to surrender this area to my husband and trust that we will both be better for it.  I have a great desire to give up what the world finds important materialistically speaking and embrace only what God finds important.  It has been a struggle.  I will do really well for awhile and then really bad.  It is a cycle for me; another long trip “around the mountain” as Joyce Meyer would call it.

Not coincidentally, I fell down hard at a retail store the other day (this is figuratively speaking).  I was waiting for that typical fight to start over what I had spent when my husband got home from work.  He is the kind of guy who loves to check all our accounts regularly so I know that he knows what I did.  But, the fight didn’t come.  Instead, I received a loving email from him in my inbox the next morning that simply said, “I thought you would be interested in this article, 10 Signs You’re a Credit Card Addict, Love, me”.

I read the article and was pleased to find that only three out of the ten signs seemed to resonate with me personally but if that wasn’t enough to take pause, the real kicker was this particular bit of wording used in this article by Allison Martin from Money Talks News.  She writes,

“Desperate times call for desperate measures, and perhaps it’s time for you to desperately seek help with your credit card addiction.”

Um, am I Desperately Seeking Sally?  Yes.  And do I believe in coincidences?  No. I will tell you that God knows exactly how to talk to me so that I will listen.  And He spoke.

So, I decided to do something about this problem that I have been wholeheartedly contributing to.  I decided to cleave to my husband and submit to his authority in the financial aspect of our marriage.  I decided to trust him (and Him) and to set myself free from the guilt and responsibility of mismanaged money.  I decided to see this thing through to find out if there is greater intimacy to be had by my doing so.  And let’s not forget, I decided to obey my God.

John (my husband) took me out to dinner for date night and after a glass of wine and a deep breath, I reached into my purse and pulled out a small stack of plastic wrapped in a purple ribbon.  Yes, it was a stack; five to be exact (don’t look at me like that – only one was currently carrying a balance).  I pushed it across the table to him and his eyes bulged out a little at the five credit cards he unwrapped because most were sorta gotten in secret (sign #6 in the article).  Anyhow, he calmly tucked them into his shirt pocket for safekeeping.

I explained that I would strive to be a better communicator and that if I felt I needed to charge something in the future I would come to him, ask him about it and then retrieve my credit card from him for approved purchases.  I also told him that I expected him to respect me as well and talk over his future expenses before making them.  At the very least this would force me to have the conversation and to hear his reasoning behind the “no” if there is one or cause him to take responsibility for the money spent if the answer happens to be “yes”.  He asked me what brought all this on and I told him I read the article he had sent me via email that morning.  He laughed and said that he hadn’t even read it himself but thought it would be funny to send to me.  In other words, he didn’t send it, God did.

You might think that I surrendered my spending to John for the sake of a happier more fulfilling marriage and that is a partial truth but really, I surrendered it to God.  It’s God’s economy that I want to be functioning in, not the worlds.  In Shane Claiborne’s book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical,  he talks about the story of the rich man that came up to Jesus asking what he needed to do to get into the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 19:16-30; Mark 10:17-30; Luke 18:18-30).  In Shane’s words,

“The story is not so much about whether rich folks are welcome as it is about the nature of the kingdom of God, which has an ethic and economy diametrically opposed to those of the world.  Rather than accumulating stuff for oneself, followers of Jesus abandon everything, trusting in God alone for providence.”

In whom or in what do I trust?  Is it God or is it plastic?  Why am I accumulating stuff for myself when I should be abandoning everything!  Yikes, I need to fight these worldly desires and look to store up my treasures in heaven instead (Matthew 6:20 KJV).

Later that same evening, as I was getting up from the couch, a sore hip that chronically gives me trouble made me wince and I said to my hubby, “Ouch! I think I need my credit card back so I can go see the Chiropractor this week.”  We both laughed.  Really?  It had been only two hours since I relinquished them.  How long can I go without the plastic as my go to?  With Jesus’ help I hope to go all the way.

Stay tuned . . .

Personal

Today is my birthday . . .

Sally

And I turn 41.  I had all these plans for the year of the fortieth.  Some of it was the usual garden variety stuff, like lose a ton of weight, yell less, spend less, forgive certain people (for real this time) and become a mega volunteer. My other goals were more serious and spiritual in nature.  I wanted to get to know God intimately, to pray and study everyday, to grow in patience for the sake of my boys and to become a better Christian as an example for my unbelieving husband.

I thought these plans were well laid because the year of the fortieth was also a big transitional year for me.  My youngest son would be joining his older brother at school by attending full day kindergarten (the best thing ever invented aside from sliced bread).  I would have all this time!  I could finally become that Super Mom that I just knew was residing underneath all that real mom stuff.

Ha.

To be perfectly honest, those first few weeks after school started I was lost.  With no one to parent, no one watching me, no one around . . . I found myself in bed, a lot.  I don’t suffer from depression usually and I’m a big self-starter.  I love a clean house and I love to cook.  Grocery shopping (without kids of course) is no big deal.  I am a natural homemaker so this lack of drive and lethargic attitude was alarming to say the least.

Then add my loving husband to the equation, who came home every night those first few weeks with the most dreaded of all questions on his sweet lips, ‘What did you do today?’  Um, ‘Laid in bed’, is not exactly the response you should give a hard working man after a long day at the office, so I evaded those questions as best I could by getting angry and defensive.

Just to help you understand my head space at that time, here is an excerpt from my diary dated August 26, 2013:

I’m miserable.  Imagine reading Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical while sitting in a smoky Las Vegas lounge as a sea of people wash up around you with all their own palpable misery.  We need God so badly and we need a better way desperately.  But I am not ready to deal with the “we” part yet.  I need to figure out “me” first.  I need to re-evaluate where my life is headed and how I can make some drastic changes.

Here is an inventory of my misery; over weight by at least twenty-five pounds (a result of sin; gluttony, emotional turmoil), distant in my relationship with God (tangled, misguided priorities), plugged into the world’s economy instead of trading it for God’s (materialism at its fullest), lacking in love for the better part of mankind (how can you love others when you clearly do not love yourself?), not having a servant’s heart (if its all about me I am not even noticing what you need), not having enough patience to treat the ones I love the most with respect and kindness (unhappiness will do that to you).  Over all, I seem to be lacking in the fruits of the Spirit.  I need to engage the Holy Spirit and find myself made new in Jesus.

Well, that’s all fine and good but I’ve tried to change all this before.  I’ve been on countless diets, I’ve made vows not to spend, I’ve tried to treat the kids better and show love to the people around me but it must never actually reach my heart because I tend to find myself back at what I would consider to be square one . . . the first day of the rest of my life . . . again.  I am weary of these false starts and scared of not finishing the race.  So, I need to re-evaluate my strategy. 

Yeah, I was a mess.  When I finally got my feet on the ground (literally), I decided to come up with a game plan.  I heard someone once say that goals without a plan are just dreams.  I needed to get me some plans made.  My plans went like this; pray first and always, allow humanity to break my heart and consciously climb down the ladder of what the world would call success to practice being the least.  Hopefully, I will then find myself in a genuine place of change. A couple of things I know; God will do the changing in me, I just need to surrender these areas to Him.  I know I can do NOTHING with out Him and boy do I know that first hand.

Here’s the deal, I will not move unless God prompts me to.  I will pray and wait on Him for all things.  I will keep my eyes on Him throughout my day and keep up with His Word daily to hear from Him.  I will also continue to read the many Christian books that come my way because I get a lot of encouragement, guidance and perspective from them.  I am turning into a learner again and as I learn new things I am realizing that I need to unlearn just as much.

My spirit word for the year 2014 is SEEK.  Therefore, desperatelyseekingsally.com is born appropriately on my flesh birthday but hopefully born of a spiritual nature.  I guess as of today I would say that I am a woman seeking God amidst a hectic life as a wife, stay-at-home mom, homemaker, friend and fellow sinner.  A woman who acutely feels the pressures of the world but who also has an overwhelming desire to dump the world and serve only Jesus. I’m a woman who struggles with duplicity, who must get up every morning with fresh hope and a fresh start or just plain give up.  But for me, giving up is not an option.  I am “all in” with no back up plan.  All my eggs are in the Jesus basket and I am very comfortable with that, even though there is a lot of learning and unlearning that needs to be done.

This is my journey and my struggle, my joy and my pain.  I hope to be as transparent as possible so please remember that I don’t have all the answers either and that I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  God is definitely not finished with me but instead He is working me over using mundane, ordinary circumstances, normal children, difficult people and an average marriage.  Does this sound like you too?  Then join me and let’s do this thing together.