It’s official. We own dirt.
Dirt Sweet Dirt. This beautiful dirt pile marks the spot where futuristic gallons of coffee will be ingested, by yours truly, for the next two to three decades! Home sweet home! After all is said, done and built (by October), this is what our new home will look like.
We’re so psyched!
But one thought keeps bouncing around my crazy Jersey girl brain. Getting to a new place is a whole lotta work.
Rarely, have I ever driven down Easy Street getting to a “new place”. Whether losing weight, managing finances or even in rebuilding my marriage – the “new place” is a whole lotta work! Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. 1 Peter 1:7 (Message)
Traveling with God is fun, never boring, and at times, the opposite of easy. Our getting to financial freedom was a whole lot of work compiled of day in and day out choices. We’ve lived in our modest town home for nine years now. Seven years ago, the time came when we couldn’t keep living above our means. So we made a series of choices: turned off the TV, canceled subscriptions, didn’t dine out, said “no” to the extra luxuries like a dry cleaner, school photos or getting my hair colored by anyone besides Loreal.
We finally surrendered as to how to make sense of our cents. We knew the solution. God . How God was going to do it? We hadn’t the foggiest idea. But we did know that doing it “our way” didn’t work.
When we were really in dire financial straits, we got even more radical. No we didn’t downsize, or go to moped transportation. We didn’t get a second or third job or put our hope into the stock market. We gave more to God. We became monthly partners with Joyce Meyer Ministries. The Finkster said he’d seen big chances in me since I started reading her books and listening to her teachings so that’s why we picked this ministry.
Translation: Dave saw God use Joyce’s teachings to tame my big mouth and attitude. He put our money where my mouth was! 
We gave $100 every month, above our tithe. We really didn’t have it to give as we operated in the red every month. But God took the trust “seed” and in t-i-m-e, God grew it, bloomed it and expanded it.
The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ-eternal and glorious plans they are!-will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last words, yes, he does. 1 Peter 5:8-11 (Message)
But after a time of what felt like suffering… freedom came. First, we were able to eat out once a week. Then we hooked the cable back up, then the dry cleaner…and so on. Then, before we knew it, we were busy doing life and didn’t even realize that we were “there” to move into our dream home. We’d finally gotten content with where we were at. Nine years isn’t so long when you compare it to the Israelites 40 year journey, right?!?! Right????
Something Pastor Kent said in his powerful Easter Sunday sermon was that, “You can’t have spring without winter.” Spring sure lets you look back and appreciate the winter for what it was, a bleak, gray, preparation time. All of creation is just striving to “be free” to bloom into their desired design…but there needs to be roots, and those roots need to be well established before bloom time could happen.
Us too.
All glory be to God, for setting our roots deep and making our finances bloom. God rocks! Our roots are expanding out, as each time we have a salary increase, we’ve spread roots out to sponsoring two more ministries, and God keeps on blessing us!
We’re now onto the important business of making our current home look like we don’t actually live in it, sometimes referred to as “putting it on the market”. Tomorrow’s the day. My hope is in nothing less, Christ the solid rock we stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
Is there an area where you need to let go and trust God to work it all out, in His time for His glory? I remember a former Air Force mentor, Lt Col Parker, told me to, “Bloom where you’re planted.” We finally did, will you too?
