Monday, January 27, 2014

Coffee Dates and Hope

     So last week was our third week into our journey to completely pay off $22,400 in "justifiable" debt.  Last week met us with reality.  We really can't buy anything. Anything.  This really isn't going to be easy. 
     For some reason I started seeing marketing everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  When you are removed from consumerism, whether by choice or not, marketing just screams at you.  It seems like I never really noticed it when I wasn't not spending money.  It was on store fronts, in my email, on my phone, on my Facebook, every time I turned a corner a business was screaming at me with their fancy signs and eloquent slogans to buy their product.  Did I give in??  NO!  Woohoo!  But it just made me realize that it's only still January and I am still in transition I guess.  It was hard.  We also realized a couple of other things. 
     I realized that I am constantly talking about "this time next year."  Yes, "this time next year" will be great and we will have this debt gone, and freedom and blee blah blee, but during my quiet time this morning (yes, this is a fairly new revelation), God convicted me of that.  "You're missing what I want to teach you today," God said to me.  He wants to teach us about obedience, His favor, blessing…there was so much I was missing because I was so focused on "this time next year."  I am working on letting go of this.  It's hard to not think about next year, but there is so much that God has already done it's crazy.  I need to be celebrating that!!  
     Let me share with you a little bit of how God has been working in our family the past few weeks.  Well, I shared with you already (and if I can figure out how to get my posts from that blog onto this one I will do that) that K had a phone call from Shasta College.  Well that played out crazily well.  He is now on the schedule as a skills instructor for the EMT academy at Shasta College!  So nuts!!  Totally from the Lord.  They said they really liked him and would like to fast track him to adjunct faculty, all he needs to do it finish his AS degree and take a 40 hour instructor course.  The biggest blessing in this??  If he were able to become adjunct faculty, his need to be gone picking up overtime at work would be drastically cut back.  He would be home more!!  We have been praying for something like this for a looooooong time.  So good.  And this isn't all God has done!  
     Recently I pinpointed the reason that I was feeling kind of down and disconnected from K.  When the kids started school this year, we were really good about doing morning coffee dates after we dropped them off.  If was glorious!  We would sit and talk and dream and plan…I loved it.  It was such great quality time and with that being my love language it was like two birds with one stone!  We had only missed out on three weeks of those, since that is just not in the budget anymore, and I was already feeling the effects.  I hadn't spoken a word of my feelings to anyone when at school the next day I was picking up the kids, one of their friends' moms came up to me with two $10 Starbucks gift cards!  WHAT!?  Her exact words were, "I feel like God wanted us to buy you guys coffee."  AMAZING.  God didn't just want her bless us…he specifically wanted her to get us coffee.  AGAIN-AMAZING!  I was on the verge of tears!  She had no clue how much this meant to us! It seemed like this kind of stuff always happened to everyone else, but never to us.  I was floored.  We had a coffee date this morning and it was so so awesome.  I even cheated on my whole 30 and had a chai tea latte because I knew and appreciated how special this was.  This was a date straight from the Lord through C's friend's parents!  God really does care about the smallest desires of our hearts.  
     Lastly, I have to share about one more thing.  We received in the mail a random package last week from some friends that we respect and love tons.  They included a necklace with the word "Hope" stamped on it and an encouraging note.  That spoke volumes to me about what we are doing.   Psalm 40:1-3 says "I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God."  Boy did he hear my silent cries and give me a firm place to stand!  He also pulled me out of the slimy pit of feeling sorry for myself…I hate self pity.  Thanks God.   I don't know if we will reach that many people with our journey, but I do know that I am not worried.  God is in this and He is faithful.  He will see us through the hard times and celebrate with us in the good.  I am looking forward to the rest of this year with hope.  So much HOPE!!!!!  

4 comments:

  1. So Georgia, you're a writer! Who knew? Love reading your posts and Dad and I are so proud of the both of you. It definitely is a journey but your lesson of living in the moment is so important. You're riches are right in front of you...three little ones to be exact and having the gift of being able to work out of the home and spend these precious years with your beautiful family is so important...and we know you guys do such a great job of that and so does God as He has supplied Kris with the means for you to continue doing just that. It brought tears to read about the gift cards, what a blessing. Praying for you guys and looking forward to your next post.

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  2. Well I cried for you if you didn't! hee hee I appreciate you sharing this with us. Congratulations Kris on your teaching job! That is a blessing to get to be home more. We love you guys! Love, Christine

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