"Financial Peace. Two words that don't go together. Kind of like "customer service." - Dave Ramsey

$18,900 in Savings
$26,000 paid off in Debt
Amazing, huh? Those are the stats for our first Financial Peace University class that just wrapped up this week. That's just 9 households in just 13 weeks! Incredible.
I've had a lot of people ask me about FPU - in fact, I had a person contact me via facebook as soon as I posted asking about FPU, what it's all about and what it teaches.
It is so tough to explain FPU in a nutshell because there are so many working parts to FPU - if you want to learn how to get out of debt, it's for you.
If you want to learn how to build wealth and save for retirement, it's for you.
If you want to learn how to manage your daily expenses, it's for you.

We had such a variety of people in our class this time - from single, 20-somethings, to young married couples, to couples who have been together for a while, someone looking for college planning for her teenagers to even someone looking into the world of retirement. Each one of them got something completely different from the 13 week course as evident by the comments at the end of the class.

My favorite participate was a 20+ single female. On her first day of the class, she emailed me to tell me how badly she needed FPU because she had just made a really big purchase that she could not afford. We came to learn that she had purchased an $1,100 electric piano - $1,100 she didn't have and had just asked her parents the week before for help paying bills.

Over the course of the class, we got to learn more about building an emergency fund, paying off our debt, negotiating good deals, and more. This young lady did so great in that she immediately put her piano up for sell - knowing she couldn't afford it, nor really needed it (need vs want).

Within just a few weeks of the end of the class, she proudly announced she had sold the piano on craiglist for just a few hundred short of what she paid for it. She was so proud.
I know this class was impacting on her because she wrote me an email to tell me this:
"I honestly have a sense of peace in regards to finances. That doesn't mean I've
got this down perfect...I'm far from it. But by saving and paying off some debt
I feel like I have the ability to make smart decisions. I don't feel like my financial
future is hopeless! And I look forward to being debt free!"

And THAT people, is why Brent and I volunteer our time to teach this amazing class.

In October, I started attending a weekly bible study. I've mentioned it many times here, and I must say it was absolutely incredible. I loved it. Each week it was the high point of my week. Not only was the material so very timely and insightful, I also had the pleasure of meeting some really great moms. Girls doing the same thing as me each and every day. We had our closing brunch this past week where many of the girls shared what this year's Mom to Mom Bible study has meant to them, how it has affected the many different aspects of their lives.
There were over 40 moms participating in this year's bible study entitled Inside Out Parenting, a curriculum written by Linda Schultz Anderson. I feel like I've said this one million times, but if I had to say one statement, one thing that I learned from this curriculum it is this: We are the parent to the child that God gave us. We don't need to compare ourselves to other parents, or compare our children to other children. We need to realize that we are the right temperament, the right lifestyle, the right balance of all of our characteristics for our children that God gave us. I learned this the second week I attended Mom to Mom. 7 months later and that's still the lesson that rings out so true for me. I'm sure if you asked someone else that attended, they would have gotten something else from it. It's one of those rhema moments that was meant for me and maybe no one else. It's kind of like attending a church sermon or a teaching and what you bring away from that is probably really different from every other attendee.
Anyway, I learned a lot of other great resources. We talked about sibling order a few times - there are all sorts of studies out there regarding how children behave based on when they were born in their families. I've always said I think it will be interesting how Brent and I parent Gabbie since we were both the babies in our families.
At any rate, I loved mom to mom. It was such a great breath of fresh air to my week. It helped me during those first few months when it was quite the adjustment to being a stay at home mom. I love my full time job now, but it doesn't mean there was a time when I missed the daily adult interaction. I know that most of the other moms feel the same way.
Ok so after all that rambling, I have a few pictures from our closing brunch. The way the group is set up, we start out as a huge group of about 45 moms, then after watching a video we have a little snack and break off into smaller groups of 10-12 people with a Titus 2 Leader. I think it's funny because these leaders are to be "older" and "wiser", but Charlotte is just a few years older than most of us, but provided so much insight and wisdom for our group. Each week she apologized if we didn't make it to our topics we were supposed to discuss, but I know each member in our group benefited far greater from our dialogue. What an insightful person to realize that is what our group needed each week.

So here's a few pics - I am definitely looking forward to getting started back up this Fall for "Heart Talk." Should be fun!!

Becoming parents is a whole new ballgame. I know. That's not so profound. But seriously you start to realize all the responsibility that God has put on you when you are given a child.
That responsibility becomes even heavier when you start to think about leading and directing your child to love God and teaching them that He is the Lord of your life. (and oddly, I'm not sure most adults know what that means, much less how to teach their child what that means...)
I suddenly just thought of Proverbs 22:6, "Train a child in the way they should go and when he is older he will not turn from it."
That's all of our goals as parents, right? Teach them. Train them. Make them the best little people we can.
This past week we dedicated Gabbie at our church. We had to go through a brief class a few weeks ago at our church to help explain what dedication is as well as what it is not. It is not salvation, but rather a promise, commitment to raise your child to love God, and know all that they can about Him.
I can't wait to tell Gabbie all about her dedication because it sure ended up a little different than we originally planned (doesn't everything!)
Originally we were going to dedicate Gabbie 2 weeks ago. Well if you flip back through my posts, you'll see that was the weekend of our Winter Storm of the century. The Moncriefs were planning to come up on Friday for the dedication on Sunday, so they started their trek. What should have been a 2 hour drive turned into 5 hours because of the crazy snow, but they persevered and made it here for a great weekend. Unfortunately none of our other family was able to make the trip as originally planned because of the crazy weather - both of our parents as well as some extended family in Alabama were all planning to come.
Obviously we felt bad because the Moncriefs had made the trip and wouldn't be able to come back the next weekend, but our church chose to reschedule the dedication to the following weekend. So this is my opportunity for a big THANK YOU to the Moncriefs for coming up - enduring the elements and having a great weekend anyway!
So this past weekend, we finally got to do the actual ceremony. Usually there are several families participating, but we were the only ones. It was really special being all by ourselves. My parents, Brent's parents, and my cousin and her husband all came on Sunday to witness Gabbie's dedication.
It was a really special time and our church definitely does a very stellar job at making this a very unique time for families.
We chose a life verse for Gabbie which is:
"Be not weary in well-doing for you shall reap if you faint not." - Galatians 6:9
Brent and I have always noticed how determined Gabbie has been from day one: from holding her head up really early to being determined to get her little arm out of her swaddle so she could suck her thumb (Brent does a really good impression of her using all of her little might to get that arm out). We picked this verse to coincide with that determination and hopefully encourage her to continue that determination throughout her life.
Thank you to our parents and the Sapps for coming to to the dedication, as well as to the Moncriefs for coming the weekend before and our extended family for planning to come even though the weather wouldn't cooperate.
Here are some pictures from our special day....

Before we went into the service, our preschool minister snapped a quick family photo. A few minutes into the service, she presented this picture in a frame for us to keep. So special!
Our community life pastor, Brent Hutchinson talking about Gabbie and the specialness of dedication. Gabbie was enthralled with him.
Praying with Brent - Gabbie was definitely more interested in him than praying...



I forgot to take pictures with the grandparents and the Sapps at church, but we got them at the house. Here with Mammaw and Pappaw.

and with Pop Pop and Ti Ti.

very excited to see her Pappaw...

I love the concept of a "play date." They kind of baffled me until I had been home for a few weeks and needed some adult interaction. I quickly realized that no matter the age of your child, you are eligible for playdates. Why? because 75% of the time they aren't really for the child, but they are for the moms.
We had a fun playdate this past week. I think I'll just start calling all of my adult interactions play dates. I mean what's really the difference in how we used to just hang out with friends? food. laughing. conversation. maybe some games. a movie. I mean really they're not that different from what we used to do with our friends.
Oh wait.
Now we have a munchkin to add to the mix. THAT'S how they're different. And the fact that all my pictures now are just of little ones instead of adults and my adult friends.

We've been on a journey for quite some time. 1 1/2 years to be exact. I don't know that we've reached our destination but it sure feels like we're getting there. A few weeks ago we had a good friend invite us to their church. The original week we were to attend we had to cancel, but the following weekend we managed to get a newborn and 2 adults to a church service and ON TIME. Yes, it truly was a miracle.
We've been to a lot of churches this past year and a half. All of them had the same thing in common: they were not the right fit for us. We knew there had to be something, somewhere here in our new community that had a little "God-shaped hole" for us. We're not jumping into the membership waters yet, but we do have our second visit under our belts and it is feeling good.
Last week I ventured into the "women's Tuesday morning Bible study" crowd. This was a new crowd for me (for obvious reasons), but I have been looking forward to finding camaraderie with other new moms. This group and the material it is studying is refreshing. Honestly. It's not cheesy. It has substance. It's real. And it's full of real women. Real moms. All of us coming together looking for friendship, a listening ear, and wisdom on this little job called motherhood.
Today's topic was on the heart that we should have as mothers. It may not sound as if it's something we should be concerned about, but think about this: we may be able to fool others, but we cannot fool our children. They know our hearts. And here's a fun fact: matters of the heart are mentioned more than 1,000 times in the Old Testament alone. Think God was trying to tell us something important? Kind of like in school when the teacher says, "if I repeat this or write it on the board - it's important."
Even as Gabbie is just 2 1/2 months old, I know she senses when I'm tired or in a hurry. I can only imagine how much more that will be amplified once I have to start verbally disciplining her. Last week we talked about the type of mother God calls us to be. I love this: God calls us to be the type of mother for the child that He gave us. He doesn't call us to be the type of mother that our own mothers were to us, or our mother in laws were, or our best friends. Why? We're married to a different man, we live in a different culture and we're raising a completely different child. Isn't that awesome? If you're a mother you can probably get such relief from this. For me it helps take that guilt that's already building over the million thoughts running through my head at. all. times. all because we're women and we do one thing REALLY well: we compare. You know you're guilty of it. You compare yourself to other women. You compare your husbands to other husbands. You compare your child's development to other children. And it's exhausting to say the least.
So what type of mother. woman. daughter. child. has God called you to be?
Don't think this isn't applicable just because you might not be a mother...yet. Think about how it applies to all of your current relationships. ESPECIALLY as a woman. No man can ever understand the battle going on in our mind. One over our thoughts. Actions. Words. No man can....except for God.