PIECE
So this past spring I led a Financial Peace University group at our church. If your not familiar FPU is the brain child of Dave Ramsey and a wonderful tool to help you refocus and get you out of debt. Trust me. It works. My wife and I paid off $15,000 in debt in three months. Yeah we had to make some crazy sacrifices and it isn’t easy, but getting into debt was exactly an overnight decision either.
So here we sit caught up on all our bills. Our only debt is for the mortgage on the house which we got at a fixed rate and have kept the cost of our house in reasonable limits for us. Despite all this I find myself angry, impatient, upset, discouraged, feeling sorry for myself. And why? Cuz I’m a baby. That’s right.
A.
Big.
Fat.
Self-Centered.
Baby.
I thought that financial peace (aka being debt free) would launch me into this new phase in life where money would just fall in my lap and I could say yes to things I wanted just because I wanted them. I admit it. I guess that I approached this whole deal with the idea that getting out of debt would become the launching point for me fulfilling all my materialistic dreams.
There is hope for me yet.
1. I am beginning to realize and understand the problem. Me.
2. While things may not be happening the way that I wanted them to happen we are seeing another possibility that would never have been an option if we were in debt. My wife is going back to school. How cool is that. We have been married over 11 years and schooling was never really much a thought. She worked cause we needed the money to pay the bills. Well, guess what…the bills are paid. And at about the same time God began to stir her heart. She’s not going back to school to get some fancy job and start some fancy career (though it could end up like that). No she is going back to school so that she can help kids learn to read.
I love my wife.
How purposeful is that? How exciting?
So the iPod, the big screen TV, the new computer, the car, all that other st*ff will have to wait. The Gerbrandt family has more important things to invest their money in…the literacy of kids who just need a little help, a little patience. And they are so going to get it….just you wait!
How do you keep yourself focused on the right dreams? What sacrifices do you make? What do you tell yourself when you make those sacrifices?
My Blahg Life by Kenyon Gerbrandt 
i have to agree with you, it is very hard. i find myself envying my friends who go and do so many things every week, but yet I know they are in way over there heads in debt and that debt is stressing them out and their marriages. still, it is supernatural to find contentment in what you have when you see so many others taking what they cannot afford, and I know that I could also have a peice of the credit card pie, but……in the end it is not worth it, although it sure seems like it would be sometimes. so what do i do? i look at my car and my home and my “stuff” and i try to get perspective on it. thanks for the thought provoking post.
July 2, 2008 at 7:23 pm
yeah..tough stuff.
July 2, 2008 at 7:30 pm
No one said it would be easy to live debt free but it has it own rewards. Wait till the first time you can give money to someone who needs it because you have been living within your means. People living on credit cards never have that joy.
Sounds like maybe you were expecting debt free living to be like the prosperity gospel so many preachers preach. You do this and God will do that. God will supply all your needs. Needs and Wants are too different things.
As Mimi says, your posts are always thought provoking. Your willingness to be transparent is awesome.
And the video was hilarious…
July 2, 2008 at 8:19 pm
annie…yes I love that clip (big Tyler Perry fan) and I think that you are right. I live in Tulsa and this whole prosperity gospel thing is on the TV (especially when you don’t have cable) all the time. Less TV…more time with God.
July 8, 2008 at 9:46 pm
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