A Rat in a Maze

Galatians 5:7
You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?

Lord God, take away my confusion. Give me clarity in direction. Please unhinder all that gets me off-track. I want to be efficient in all that I do.

Today's Bible study reading talks about a family that basically wanted to keep up with the Joneses'...it was all about what they could purchase...the Mom went back to work and they dreamed big dreams. The daughter asked her father one day if he still loved their mother as their family dynamic had changed. The kids were in daycare, the mom was back at school and at work, and the father was working 12-14 hour days. He wound up telling her that he loved their mother very much, but if they were going to have more money for the good life then that equaled less family time. If they had more family time...they'd have less money. They were just trying to live the good life. At the end of the story, the mom was really confused and moved out of the house for some time for herself to reevaluate what she wanted.

My reflections...
I think in today's society we are such a materialistic society. It's all about the things that we can buy or who has this or that and having to have that too. Not many people live within their means anymore. So many people have credit card debts and personal loans to buy this stuff that they think they need. I wish I would have followed the advice of my Grandma back when I was in college and she told me to keep saving my money rather than spending it and boy was she mad at me when she found out that I had gotten my first credit card. She told me back then, if I saved for what I wanted, I'd appreciate it all the more.

Then, I got married and Andy made good money. We were living the good life and we were young. We didn't always make the best of decisions money wise. Then, he lost his job shortly after Deidra was born and we got scared and charged things that we shouldn't have because we didn't have the money. Our thought process was always "when he starts working again, we'll have the money to pay them off." We got way in over our heads and when he did find work again...his salary was no where near what it was before. He worked long hours to try to make up for that, but in the end of things we had to file bankruptcy.

We got on board with Dave Ramsey and started to turn things around. We moved in with my FIL and while it wasn't always the best of scenarios...we were blessed that he let us stay there and get back on our feet. We sacrificed a lot and saved up our money and were able to really turn things around.

Last year, we moved to TX so that Andy could find a good paying job as Michigan's economy just wasn't very good. He was blessed with a very good job...I think it will wind up being the best job that he's ever had and things are moving forward for us again. We're building a house, the mortgage lender said that our credit scores are better than a lot of people's that haven't ever filed for bankruptcy, and that they had gotten that way because we were doing all of the right things. We've definitely learned how to live below our means and it is nice when emergencies pop up that we can just go pay cash rather than having to charge it. It's definitely a lot less stressful. Will I say that we'll never have a loan or a credit card again...no, but we're going to do our best to not have to use them or have them for very long and obviously we'll have a house loan when we build our new home.

I am blessed too that I have been able to go down to only working 2 days a week so that I can spend more time with Deidra. She's very important to me and while I know that over the past 3 years I have had to go back to work because of our finances, I'm glad that we have gotten them back under control so that I am able to stay home again. I can tell that it means a lot to her as well to have me home with her again.