Redirection

I think every time I sit down to write on this blog, I find myself reaching for words to assess my life and where it is going.  Since I graduated from undergrad in 2003, I have been searching for who I am...who I want to be...where I want to go.  I have been aiming at nothing and hitting it every time, as Zig Ziglar would say.

A funny thing happened when the clock turned to midnight and the calendar turned to 2016...I started to really think about my life, my husband and my children and where we want to go.  I want to do better, I want to be better and in a few years when my personal calendar turns to 40, I want to be able to look back and see that my trajectory was actually aimed at something God pleasing, God glorifying and career sustaining.  I started the year frantically trying to figure out how we could save up for a down payment on a home...renting is starting to become far too expensive and we really have started feeling like it is time for us to be in a nice home.  We are responsible, accomplished adults...our lifestyle should start to reflect our level of success, right? WRONG! I also realize that we owe a significant amount of money to creditors due primarily to massive amounts of student loans.  I quickly asked myself how we could accomplish saving for a down payment on a home and simultaneously paying down debt.  I started asking people with Finance backgrounds what would be the best course of action...paying down the debt, saving for a home downpayment and paying the debt later, or doing both simultaneously.  The answers that I received ran the gamut and I was utterly confused...and this was only a few days into the New Year.

I soon picked up Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover off of my bookshelf and blew the dust off.  My husband and I read most of this book several years ago...loved the principals but were not motivated to follow them.  I know that the book contains sound Bible-based teaching on personal finance, and Dave does not honey-coat his approach to tackling debt.  Just a few pages into the book and I knew that I had to start focusing on paying down debt.  With my husband on the same page, we have started the debt snowball. Right now, it literally feels like we are throwing little snowballs off of a mountain of debt...but we have started somewhere, we are committed, have a plan and these are the most important things.

But along with starting this debt snowball, I have again started a period of introspection.  I have started thinking about my value as an employee.  If I was an employer, would I hire me?  Do I take advantage of every moment at work to work as unto the Lord?  Am I maximizing my income so that we are being good stewards over what we have?  Where do I see myself in five years?

These are hard questions, with no real answers at this point.  I am in a period of self-discovery and trying to get out of my own head so that the Lord can minister His will to me while I contentedly rest in the path on which I currently journey.  That is so much easier said than done.  I sometimes frantically run to the most popular job search engine and sit for hours trying to find that one gem job. Although so many people tell me that they got their best jobs through their network, and I have seen and believe this to be true...there is this small voice inside of me that refuses to let go of the control...and just surrender the whole process to Christ.  That is the place that I need the most work.  That surrender.  I get into cycles of trust-thrive-no trust-survive.  As Paul said, What a wretched man I am!  Lord, help me to trust you.

So, I am going to let God take care of these things.  I want to use this blog as accountability to focus on the things that God has put before me: working towards debt freedom, being a good steward in my current jobs, being a better mother and better wife.  I can't wait to look back on this post on December 31, 2015 and see myself in a better place :) A place of stewardship and trust.