A long time coming...and a lot of hard work!

"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender."  Proverbs 22:7

This is a verse that Dave Ramsey uses to get a point across during his 91 days of Financial Peace University.  Anyone who knows me also knows how much I absolutely appreciate everything this program has done for our family over the past 4 years.  There have been several times we have looked at situations we were in and thought to ourselves: "What in the world would we have done if we had not learned how to manage our money the way God intended for us to?"  I am here today- 4 years after we began our journey into financial health- to say that WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!  People get to scream that to the mountaintops when they call into the Dave Ramsey show...we don't feel the need to shout it to the mountaintops, but we thought it was something worth celebrating.  We still have our mortgage to pay off, but that will be in the works to finish early.  They call this "Consumer debt" free.  I never fully understood why people were able to call into the show and yell that they were debt free if they still had a mortgage, but I'll go along with it.  Anyway, we have been working the system pretty hard over the past 4 years and have looked at all the numbers.  We have payed off a grand total of $39,500.  Some things- like the medical bills- we paid off in full once we received the bill; and others...we had to finance, but paid off early along the way.  We are very thankful for Dave's ministry to the financially hurting and are proud to call ouselves one of his success stories.  The verse at the top is very true to the core.  "...the borrower is slave to the lender."  There were so many things that we couldn't do because of our bondage to the finance company.  We were able to pay all of our bills- by the grace of God- but we weren't able to do anything further.  During these past 4 years, we have also been able to do some things that are pretty incredible for other people.  I will not give you any details as you may have been one of them that we did something for and I don't want anyone to figure it out...we like to be private in our giving as much as we can.  I have had this crazy idea that I have not yet been able to accomplish to this day, but hope at some point, I can be a huge blessing to someone.  There is an auto mechanic around the corner from my house that we have used when we needed to get our cars fixed in one way other another.  The idea I had was to take $1,000 cash to the manager and see if there was anyone that was struggling to get their car fixed because of finances and I wanted to go ahead and take care of it for them so they wouldn't have to finance anything to fix their car.  I wouldn't want to meet the person, I would just want to help them out- knowing that God will give them a huge blessing because of it.  I also had other ideas of paying for someone's groceries in front of me at the store, or maybe even something as small as paying for someone's gasoline at the pump...just to give them a good day.  I think that if you really want to be radical in sharing Jesus with the world, you have to do things that people don't see very often- if at all...and maybe even don't understand.  The thing is...you can't do things like this when you are in bondage with your finance company.  Every month you are making payments is a month you can't do something else with that money...something that could change someone's life for the better.  I remember Hilary and I laughing when the class began at things that Dave was saying in the videos.  You mean...you're going to take the money we have now and show us how to make it go further...Yeah Okay...I'll believe it when I see it!  We were eating our words when we started having more money at the end of the month.  Maybe there's more to this stuff than what we thought.  If you haven't ever been though an FPU class...maybe it's time you went.  We are a testimony to what it can do- if you're serious about it.  I hope you all have had a wonderful day today.  On a different note, we have an appointment this Thursday morning to pick out a head stone for Kaydence.  I don't know exactly what it is going to look like, but I do know that it will be some shade of pink.  I miss her today pretty bad.  I don't necessarily wish she was here with us as much as I wish we were there with her.  That day will come...and what a day it will be.  Thanks for all your prayers and support...still!