Reasons

I know you have all been waiting patiently for the sequel/answers to my last post, so here they are without further ado...

I am not dying, YAY! Haha. I went to the doctor and described my symptoms and she told me there is a virus going around and that is what I had. She said she had it and it lasted for about 3 weeks. Funnily enough, I started feeling better once I knew I wasn't dying anymore :) So that cleared that up pretty quickly. She recommended some supplements for me to increase my energy and reminded me to eat well and exercise. I wish I could get a prescription for exercise. I mean, I guess that's what I got, but it would be cool if workouts came in a little bottle or something. That'd make it easier. Pretty sure we went out to dinner to celebrate my feeling better and I stuffed myself with a delicious burger and sweet potato fries :) Obviously I'm a good listener.

On to situation #2- meeting my birth mom. Her name is Kim, just to make the story easier. I was worried about emotions and whatnot, but I need not have been. Because it was a really weird, detached sort of experience. Let me back up a little bit. Now that this experience has passed, I can see how God was working in it...actually, I think the point was to see how God was working in my life before I ever even arrived in this world.

So Kim had a 3-year-old, Kati, when she got pregnant with me. My bio dad peaced out and so she was planning to keep me...until Kati's dad re-entered the picture and sort of wanted to rekindle their relationship. It had been tumultuous (to say the least) and honestly I know they were married at one point but I'm not sure when that officially started and ended. So anyway, she wanted back with him but he refused to raise another man's child (which I am very thankful for) so she decided to give me up for adoption in order to try and make a better situation for Kati. Through a friend who was my parents' neighbor, she discovered that they were looking to adopt another child and eventually asked if they wanted me, which, thankfully, they did. So she came to Kansas and had me, my parents took me, and she and Kati returned to Texas.

I am totally here for a reason. I mean specifically here. I outsmarted birth control (ha!) and wished myself into existence. God had plans for me. His plan was that I be raised by an incredibly caring and stable set of people I call Mom and Dad. And that I meet a cute guy in high school, fall in love, and start a family with him. God's plan was for me to know and love my Dad, and my kids' Dad. He wanted Dads in my life, and without my adoption, that wouldn't have happened. Perhaps he wanted me to know the love of an earthly father so I could better understand His love for me. Neither of my bio sisters have their dads in their lives, nor do their children. I am happy that they are finding their way as single moms, but I am sad that neither they nor their children know what it is like to have the unconditional love of a Dad. It's an amazing thing. I am so blessed to have both my mom and my Dad, and Tim, the most wonderful and caring Dad I could ever have asked for for my children.

So I truly do think that part of God's plan was for me to be raised and nurtured by two stable parents, rather than moving from place to place, seeing men walk in and out of my life, and experiencing the effects of different forms of abuse. God had a gentler plan for me. I'm not sure why I, as the middle child of this particular situation, was chosen to have these opportunities. But I must not forget my blessings. I have a greater purpose still that I do not know the details of, but I trust that they will unfold in time.

So, the weekend. What was the trip like? To tell the truth, it was weird and I am glad it is over. I enjoyed meeting Kati and her little girl, that was a very cool experience. The rest of it felt...well, strange. I went into the weekend expecting my bio mom to have a purpose for the trip, a reason for wanting to meet me, etc. But that never came. No questions were really asked about my life, not much conversation was actually made. We did some visiting and shared some meals but the surface was not scratched. It felt very anticlimactic to me. I didn't feel very emotional about it...that just wasn't the tone of the weekend. It's weird to talk about it, because I don't think that's what anyone would expect to hear out of a story like this. It's strange, isn't it?

I learned in greater detail the circumstances of my birth and adoption, as well as what I "missed" by not...sticking around. And the take home for me, is gratitude. I am so grateful for my loving parents. I am grateful they have shown me how to love others, and to not settle for less. I am grateful for the circumstances to meet a wonderful man to be my partner in life, and that he stuck around when I got pregnant. He didn't have to, as I've seen, but he did. He's a wonderful, thoughtful husband and a devoted father. Our girls will know love and security and stability just as I have known them. And I am so grateful for that.

God has had a plan for me from the beginning. I hadn't given that much thought until now...but it is true. Even when I was a tiny blob of cells, He was making GREAT plans for my life. Plans to prosper me and not to harm me. Plans to give me hope and a future. I will not take that for granted.

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A question for my kids: If you love your Taggie blanket/stuffed bunny/favorite book/boots/stuffed toy so much, then why do you lose it SO frequently?!?!

I < 3 $$$

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21

I like money. Pretty much have since I first learned what it was. I was recently reading a diary from my childhood (a gem in itself!) and found an entry from age 8 where I wrote, "Today, Dad gave me $5 for stamping Blimpie things!" and another, "Dad made me work with money today and paid me NINE BUCKS!" It was love at first sight I guess :)

Luckily, my parents taught me to save, and that is what I did. I babysat in the summer and kept all the cash stuffed away in my room. On my birthday and on Christmas, I deposited half of what I received into my bank account. When I got my first job at 16, I set myself up on direct deposit and it all went straight into my checking account, which probably would be more accurately described as a savings account because aside from gas and the occasional movie out with friends, I didn't withdraw much. I liked imagining my money growing into large piles in the bank. I don't think I've actually been completely broke since I was about 7. It creeps me out to even type that in case it will somehow jinx me.

This relationship with money worked fine, for the most part, until about 3 1/2 years ago, when we purchased our home. We put 20% down on our house and let me just say, I struggled with watching that money leave our bank account. I mean yes, we were buying a HOUSE, but man...that was a lot to exit the account at once. Ouch. About the time we became homeowners, Tim started his first "big boy" job at Farmers Insurance. When we got married, I basically insisted that I would be in charge of our money, and Tim didn't have a problem with that. But it wasn't until we bought the house and he started his new job that we really had a significant amount of money coming in and going out for me to manage. I did not like the "going out" part that comes in the form of mortgage payments, utilities, insurance (So many forms of insurance! The Padens and we make our livelihood from the insurance industry so I am grateful for it, but seriously, it's annoying) along with diapers and daycare. Money was moving.

I continued to have a sort of hoarder mentality with money, but it was a lot harder. I did my best to manage what Tim brought in, and we were very blessed, but looking back, I didn't really know what I was doing, and I wasn't the best steward of our money.  I was inconsistent, dirt cheap in some areas and spendier in others. In general, the not-so-giant pile of money I'd envisioned was slowly but surely dwindling.

It wasn't until Tim lost his Farmers job this past January (can't believe it's almost been a year, wow!) that we got a little wake up call. We were okay during this period, but we needed to make some changes. My good friend Jessica shared with me about her experience following Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, and helped us enter the world of zero balance budgeting and cash envelopes. Tim and I listened to his CDs while we painted the bathroom one weekend. Dave made a lot of sense to us. So when Tim got his new job with PHLY, we jumped on the bandwagon.

"Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops" Proverbs 3:9

 

Dave Ramsey is a Christian and encourages the biblical principle of tithing. To tithe, by definition, is to return 10% of your earnings to God. Specifically, the first 10%. Because when it comes down to it, it is all His anyway. We are just stewards of what He has given us, while we are here. In theory, this made sense to me. God has richly blessed our lives in more ways than I can count. Yet somehow, it still...hurts...to give Him a cut of it.

When Tim and I first joined our church, we didn't give at all. We both recall hearing demands for money from the pulpit throughout our Catholic upbringings, and when we came to our new church, we didn't hear about money and we were glad. So we didn't worry about it. We didn't have much money, after all. I was student teaching full time and paying for daycare, after all. We'd worry about that later, someday when we had enough money. Whatever that is.

We eventually started giving a little, once Lexi was out of daycare. Not too much. Not enough that it hurt. But it made me feel less guilty.  That's probably the main reason we did it- guilt. Not a good reason, in my opinion. But it was what it was.

So, Dave Ramsey. I printed the budgeting forms off and started filling in numbers. Despite the fact that Charitable Giving/Tithing is the very first thing on Dave's budgeting form, I skipped it, budgeted for "real" essentials like food, the mortgage, and gas, and then, I'd take whatever was left and mark it down under Charitable Giving. Not very charitable, huh? I was still doing it out of guilt. Eventually, I got into a rhythm of setting aside a mediocre amount to give to our church. It didn't really hurt to give that much. I felt okay about it, because all of our needs were covered first. And honestly, if things were tight one week, I would just skip it and justify it in my head. I mean, we are a one-income family after all. With small kids. So, y'know, we have challenges.

Then one day, while I was sitting in church, I heard a whisper of something in my head. I can't even remember if the sermon was about tithing, but I was thinking about our not-so-generous giving, and I heard this whisper in my head, telling me to give a certain amount of money. It just so happened to be double the amount we were giving at the time. I had this feeling that we should start giving that amount. But it was scary...because it was a lot. It made me nervous. I pictured my imaginary money pile disappearing. I worried that we wouldn't have enough to cover our expenses. But I talked with Tim about it, and we decided to give it a try. So I wrote the first check, worried, but trying to trust God.

I've always felt blessed. I have a supportive husband who is a dedicated father. My kids are healthy and kind. I am blessed with sweet friends and family members who love us. We have a warm home and we never go hungry. We are blessed. But I swear, right after I heard that whispery voice and decided to put my trust in God by giving back more...extra little blessings started popping up.

I won a free laptop. I took the kids to Crown Center one day, where they were given wonderful free books at the book store there and a kind gentleman let us visit Science City on his pass so we could get in for free. We got a letter in the mail telling us our mortgage payment would be decreasing by $10 per month, and in the envelope there was a $224 refund check. Tim got an unexpected bonus at work. I received orders for my new cake business. I was called to participate in market research and made $70 testing diaper wipes and $75 talking about turkey packaging (seriously). This all happened within a month's time.

I'd heard this verse before, but I began to understand it on a whole new level:

"Look at the birds in the sky. They don't sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you worth much more than they are?" Matthew 6:26 CEB

It's funny. As I began writing those larger checks, I tried to trust God, in my own imperfect, human terms. I thought to myself, "Well, maybe Tim will get a good raise next year and we won't have to worry about this anymore." I did some calculations in my head about tax returns, cost of living increases, our premiums for our new health insurance plan...in short, I tried to make a God thing into a human thing. I tried to understand something so much bigger than I am. But I can't. Because God's ways are great, a little mysterious sometimes (turkey packaging?) and completely beyond what I can conceive of. He has His plans for me. For peace and not disaster. 

I'm putting my trust in Him. Maybe I can't make the numbers all make sense to me each time. I'm still not where I want to be as far as giving goes, but we have made progress in the right direction. In addition to increasing our giving at church, we decided to sponsor a little girl named Yerlyn through World Vision. We do the best we can, and place the rest in His hands. And I am still working on this one...

 

"Your way of life should be free from the love of money, and you should be content with what you have. After all, he has said, I will never leave you or abandon you." Hebrews 13:5 (CEB)

 

 I am going to try to stop mentally hoarding so much. Dave Ramsey talks about the fact that if your hand is closed tightly around your money, it cannot flow. It won't be able to leave your hand, true...but, at the same time, it won't be able to flow into your hand, either. I will graciously accept the blessings that I have now and open myself to trust that God will continue to bless us when we trust Him.  

 

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Malachi 3:10

Coming soon...

...a post about money.

Baggage

"So then let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter. He endured the cross, ignoring the shame, for the sake of the joy that was laid out in front of him, and sat down at the right side of God’s throne." Hebrews 12:1-2 CEB

Throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, and fix our eyes on Jesus.

Easy enough, right?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been working on this. It is challenging yet refreshing. It's easy for me to deal with obvious, visual clutter. Scoop it into a bag and donate it or throw it away. In fact, I did that just yesterday. The kids were away with my awesome in laws and so I took the opportunity to purge all of the junk that's gathered on top of surfaces. I scooped up huge piles of papers off my desk, the kitchen table, and Lexi's room. Lexi, my almost 5-year-old, is a budding author/illustrator, and she has a hard time getting rid of any of the paper that she marks upon. It makes sense sometimes. Sometimes, she spends a great deal of time writing a story or drawing something beautiful and detailed. Those pieces of art get safely tucked away in my desk. But among the beautiful, there are many many scraps and scribbles and abandoned works. They are stacked in corners of her room, my desk, tucked under furniture, and cluttering her closet. But it's hard for her to say goodbye to any of them. Because at one point, they meant something to her. At one point, she took pen (or marker, pencil, scissors or glue) to paper and had an idea or tried something. Put her heart into it. Sometimes it works out the way she wants it to, and other times, it doesn't. But she still clings to it all.

It is hard for us as adults to acknowledge the extra baggage in our lives sometimes. I have a particularly hard time letting go of relationships and commitments that I've poured part of myself into. Do you ever struggle with that? We cling just as tightly as Lexi does to every scrap, every commitment, every relationship, every item we purchase, everything we've ever poured part of ourselves into. Because it is hard to let go! It is hard to admit that we don't really need something that we spent money or time on, or that something we've committed ourselves to is no longer a valuable use of our time. It is hard to throw off extra baggage when we can't decide if it is baggage or not, when we might need it someday, when casting it off might make people look at us differently.

But friends, if we don't cast it off, it gets heavy. It weighs us down. It takes up our time and our energy. I've learned that I can't do ALL things and do them ALL well. But if I let go of some of the excess, if I prioritize, I can do SOME things, REALLY well. But I need to allow myself some spare time and energy too. Time and energy I need to do what that verse says: fix my eyes on Jesus. We can't fix our eyes on Jesus if we don't take our eyes (and our hearts, and our time and energy) away from the baggage that's pulling us down. We can't see the beauty of something really special if scraps and abandoned works and half-hearted commitments obscure our view.

What baggage have you struggled with? What would you like to let go of so you can fix your eyes on Jesus?

Simplify

Sometime in the last year or so, Tim and I have sort of started a journey of simplifying our lives. I believe it started with Leo Babauta and his blog ZenHabits or maybe his book The Power of Less (PS I just realized I can link to stuff, so now I am going to) but anyway, we suddenly became interested in the idea of living more simply. Tim reads several blogs on the topic and sometimes shares the articles with me, and in general, we've just been trying to be content with what we have and where we are.

It has been an enjoyable process. I can say that my desire for "more!" has been lessened greatly when it comes to belongings. I occasionally add things to my Amazon wishlist (mostly books I want to check out from the library) or come up with an idea for a gadget that would make some aspect of my life a little easier (a small cookie sheet, anyone?) but I am not consuming at the rate I once was. I don't feel the need for new clothes when the ones I have are fine, nor the desire to to spend money to fill a void (aka retail therapy). Part of this is because we don't have the extra money for that kind of thing anymore :) We enjoy going places together, but I don't feel that I always have to be somewhere or have plans made. I don't like being in a hurry all of the time. Sometimes it is just nice to sit on the deck while the kids play in the yard, or take a family walk around the neighborhood and talk to each other. I feel like I've taken a giant chill pill and have experienced a great deal of contentment because of this.

I've been trying to cut away the excess in my life and I don't just mean the physical stuff. I mean the commitments too. I've been looking at the different things I've committed myself to and have been asking: What purpose does this fulfill? Is this a worthy use of my time?  And sometimes, the answer is no. And when it is, I might decide to no longer be a part of that. I am trying to cut away the nonessential, the things that drag me down, and the distractions.

Oh, the distractions. Facebook, email, internet, TV...they try to suck me in and suck up my time, and sometimes, they win. Especially Facebook. dang Facebook! I vacillate between wanting to delete my account and relying on it for communication with friends and scheduling activities for the kids. I don't even want to know how much time I waste on the stupid internet. Grrr. There's progress to be made. More simplifying to be done.

I feel like this whole experiment has given me some perspective. My time here on Earth is limited. I don't really want to rush through it all, spend a bunch of time on tasks that aren't meaningful, and getting super grumpy because I never get a break or any time to just reflect. I would rather take the time to love the people I love and use my gifts to make a positive impact. I would rather glorify God, give thanks to Him for my abundant blessings, share His love with others. I would rather pause and reflect, think things through before reacting harshly, and just enjoy life.

Laundry, dishes, the budget, dirty diapers, messy floors (seriously, I don't know how my kids make the floor so messy every single meal, but they do) will call for my attention, and I will answer. Eventually. But in the areas I can control, I'm choosing to simplify and live with purpose the best I can.

I am thankful

I talk about being thankful a lot because I have a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful for my family and for my friends, for my home, for the fact that there is food in the kitchen, clothes in the closet, books on the shelves and peace in my heart. I am thankful that God has brought me to where I am today.

I went to Women of Faith with some friends this weekend, and it was a great experience, a real time of encouragement and empowerment, a wonderful reminder of all He has done for me and all that I can do for His people. I know that He has amazing plans for me, and I have a feeling they might be kind of big. We will see.

What have I been up to lately?

1. Listening to this song. I've heard it on the radio many times and I got to see it performed LIVE today. It was powerful! Check it out: You Are I Am

2. We've decided to sponsor a child through World Vision. We've talked about it before and then the WOF conference sealed the deal and last night we chose 5-year-old Yerlyn from Costa Rica, who loves drawing, just like another little girl I know. I am so excited about this.

3. I've been trying to reduce my number of commitments in order to make a bigger impact in the most important areas of my life. It is freeing.

4. I have been teaching Lexi at home. Did I mention I am homeschooling her this year? Well, I am. More about that in future posts perhaps. We are giving it a test drive, using a few different curricula and doing Pre-K/Kindergarten. I mostly love it so far. Right now we are working on reading and writing mostly, and she is also taking an Intro to the Stage class and checking out every single bug that comes within 10 feet of her. She says she wants to be an entomologist when she grows up. I feel really blessed to have this time with her and with Lydia.

5. Reading! I am reading again and it feels so right! I just reread Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World and I loved it even more than the first time I read it (which was when Lydia was just a few weeks old, so my brain probably wasn't in on it too much then). It has inspired me not only to read more, but also to start reading the news. So now I've got NPR and USAToday apps and I am following things outside my four walls and feeling informed.


I hope this finds you well, my friends. Blogger tells me that a few people are reading this, or maybe that is just me re-reading my own writing for errors ;)  I want you to know that whatever you are going through right now...won't last forever. You are loved. Don't forget that!