A Wonderful Present

A wonderful and unexpected gift was deposited into our bank account in the wee hours on Tuesday morning.

Around 7 am, I made payments to our last two credit cards and noted- pay in full and then close.

We had that money in our possession LESS than 5 hrs and now its gone!  Kinda like it was never there......

But it was there... it was truly a gift from God.  Something that we didn't expect or count on.  But because of it we are just a little bit closer to being debt free.

I get discouraged some days about living so frugally, not owning a home, going without and stressing about money.  I don't stress about money because we can't pay bills (thank Goodness!).  I just get the "I-Wants-Ies" and want to replace or have new things.  It gets discouraging to see others live life irresponsibly or taking government hand outs while we budget and plan and budget some  more.  Its something we thought about very briefly and deciding that we could do it on our own.... through lots of hard work, long hours and living without.  Its hard to watch others live with so much more than we do, but when things like this happen, I am reminded what we are doing.

We made mistakes with the money that God had entrusted to us.  We did really stupid things.  Not sure if there are too many people that acted as stupidly as we did.  We were young and naive.  We wanted it all and we needed it all.  I am very very very thankful that we learned our lesson when we were still young and before we made it worse by buying a house, filing bankruptcy and before it affected our children more than it already has.

What are we doing this for?  To live freely and to not be a slave to any master....  To teach our children the right and wrong way of handling their money.  To honor God and glorify Him.

Our next and final debt, now that we are credit card debt free, is to pay off Hubbie's school loans.  We need to replace Hubbie's car so hopefully that will be a quick event with the help of a little bit of freed up monthly money and our small tax returns.

I pray that this next debt will get paid off quickly.  I REALLY REALLY would like to own our own place soon.  Living in rentals get old.  Our house that we are in now is a Godsend and an answer to prayer, but living in rentals means that you are basically living in other people's irresponsibility!  The last renters of our house did not clean or take care of it at all.  After a year and a half, I am still trying to fix the issues that they left.  Its frustrating to have to live with other people's lack of pride in the place that live- even if you don't own it.  I just know that when we finally get into that house, it won't be a burden.  It will be a blessing to our family and those that come into it.  I am hanging on to that as we slowly finish paying for our mistakes!

Its amazing- the journey we have been on for 4 years.  Its been a hard lesson... filled with tears of frustration, joy and hard work.  God has been extremely good and continues to pour out His marvelous grace upon us and forgiveness.

This moment is a moment Hubbie and I have been working towards, praying about and hoping for for 4 years......  All those stupid purchases on those stupid credit cards are all officially paid for!  We have paid for every single cent of those stupid mistakes!  WOO HOO!  I can't tell you what that means to us.  We did it!  We did it!  We did it!

"Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count." Psalms 40:5