Full Heart.....Full Home: November 2010

So it's been a long time since I've actually posted on here. I've written a few entries since my last post, but most of them were me venting and I decided to not post them. Today I think I finally have enough courage to blog on something that's been on my heart for awhile. Courage for what you may ask? I fear that my stance on the matter may hurt someone's feelings, and maybe it won't at all, but I know it's a touchy subject, and it would never be my intent to hurt someone at all. I just want to share what God's been doing in me on the matter.
So here it goes....
Before my pregnancy journey ever began...loooonnnggg before, I had my plan of what our family would look like. Dave and I were trying to work hard to put ourselves in a position financially so that someday when we did start a family, I would be able to stay home. Of course at the same time we were trying to slowly put our feet out into the real world. Your parents don't tell you in college what other things you will be expected to pay for once you are completely out of the house...health insurance, life insurance, savings for retirement funds, possible car payments, mortages etc. My parents did a relatively good job of teaching me to provide for myself financially in college by paying for my own books, tuition (if financial aid or scholarships didn't cover it would have been my responsibility..thank God I graduated with no debt!). I was responsible for my groceries, rent, cell phone etc. They helped me out every so often....I would come home and they would fill up my tank with gas, or buy a few groceries for me, if my car needed something fixed it wasn't unheard of for my dad to say "I'll take care of it," but there are so many other "real world" expenses you don't think about.
Dave and I lived in an apartment for 3 years before we bought our house, and by no means is our house extravagent. It's a 1350sq ft single story ranch with three bedrooms, but has the perfect roomy layout for our needs, and our mortgage payment was fractions more than our rent. We finally decided to take the plunge and strive to find something that was a conservative price once we realized we probably wouldn't be able for me to fully afford to stay home even in the apartment.
We budget our groceries- shop sales, and Aldi whenever we can. Our home improvements have all been done by us or with our family and friends helping us as much as we can. We've made our share of mistakes....started to travel down the path of getting pulled into the world of 0% interest for x amount of months if you buy this material item.....we did that a few times. Never had to pay extra interest cause we paid it off before the time was up, but still it was stupid....we should have saved and bought it outright. We no longer have those payments to make which is wonderful!
For quite awhile Dave and I had been praying about whether or not to start a family...I wanted to be a mom so badly, but it wasn't in MY timing. If I were to become a mom now I knew I wouldn't be able to stay at home full time, it scared the crap out of me to think of the what ifs (as in what if God asked us to scrimp and scrape and I didn't even know how....in order for me to be full time stay at home mom). So we waited. For a little while we felt like God might even be leading us to adopt...not for any reason that we were infertile, just because our hearts just felt so eager whenever someone talked to us about adoption, etc.
My timeline looked something like this: Dave is still in school currently and working fulltime. He will be done in spring of 2012, at that point or maybe a little before we can try getting pregnant, and by the time we have the baby he should have a new, better paying job, with great benefits, and I can stay home.
Even looking back at it I see what a selfish heart I had. Kind of makes me ashamed.
As Dave and I started talking more about having a family we both realized....just because you graduate doesn't magically mean that some perfect job appears out of nowhere. It started to hit me that maybe, just maybe...we'd still be stuck in the same position two years from now, and then how would I feel if all this time we wanted to start our family and we waited selfishly..only to find out that we could have started long before and still be in the same situation.
This past June we went to our churches summer conference in Carbondale IL. Had a long conversation about starting a family on the way home. Came home and prayed....on our knees and just prayed, hard. God completely broke us. There is no doubt in either of our minds of what God said....to just let go and trust him with our family and that he would provide. What a scary moment that was. To trust him with so much unseen when my heart ultimately wanted so badly to stay at home and I had no idea if that would happen or not. Nevertheless, I believe it was a little over one month later that we found out we were pregnant. God's timing?? For sure!
The next few months were so exciting- places that Dave had been applying at for 2 years called him...all of them! He had interviews at each. Each time he was contacted I felt like God just kept saying "I've got it, just trust me." Well interviews came and went quite awhile ago, positions have either been filled, or no phone calls ever called to let us know the outcome...either way it's over the amount of time it should have taken them to contact Dave and now my thoughts turn to now what?
Early on in our pregnancy Dave and I had sat down and discussed somethings. One thing he said that really stuck with me is this "Bridget, we need to do what we feel led by God to do for our family. No one elses. God leads some to stay at home, others to work part time, and it doesn't matter what others do. What matters is that we are obedience to what God is asking of us." It's helped me so many times to remember that as we've been going through this process. The more I prayed about what God had for us even in those potential new jobs I realized that each of them required sacrifice...it still wouldn't be the perfect scenario. He had applied for a job at ISU, but the pay would still be just barely enough that I might even still have to keep working some, and then we would no longer have the perks of Dave's job which is get this....free daycare. Free daycare! Are you kidding me Bridget how ungrateful are you!!! Did I even realize how many people would love to be in my position right now? He also applied for a job at U of I- would have been driving down there early in the morning cause it was a bakery job and increasing our gas bill per month because of the 1hr and 45 min drive total every day. Another job that we thought would be perfect, and definitely would have allowed me to stay at home relatively quickly after the baby was born (maybe not immediately) just didn't work out even though the interview went really well. Now I didn't understand why God would have all of these jobs come up after years of applying for them and none of them workout.
I personally still am not saying something won't happen at the last minute, or even after the baby arrives that circumstances might change, but I do know that all I can do now is plan with the resources God has given us.
Halfway through this process I suddenly realized that God might not just change Dave's job, but he could have something for me as well. I applied for a position that was work from home at a local woman's ministry but nothing came out of it. Still, I felt God just saying you won't know unless you try. I tried. It didn't work out, but at least I explored options. I had tried things in the past...Mary Kay, real estate, and even played with the idea of photography, and still even now I know that all those things were done in my effort to control and provide for us, without seeking God's will in it. One night, not too long ago Dave and I talked about photography....I love it, but the hours I would work would take me away on weekends...which I love to have with Dave, and in the evenings which are our current family time. Dave said "my goal is for you to stay home and it may just be a little while before you can fully do that, but if you start a business up in the process then that will be something you have to do from home later when financially we might not even need that extra income. A lesson in patience. To trust my husband and ultimately trust God's provision.
Now comes the tricky part...the part where people may or may not disagree with me and that's ok. I am just speaking about what God's been teaching us and I don't think God has a one size fits all mold. As I've prayed and sought out God's biblical wisdom on working mothers I can't find anything against mother's working outside the home. I've found passages on training and rearing your children, on managing your home wisely, etc, but nowhere does it point blank say "Thou shalt not work outside the home, but should stay at hometh." There are several examples in the bible of women taking their children with them in their "trade." I think our responsibility as mothers lies in this: if we aren't fulfilling our duties as a mom and a wife first before work then our priorities aren't straight and something has to change, however if we are able to balance these things all together and put God first through all of it, I don't think there is a problem with working outside the home. So as I prayed and prayed for God to let me stay at home I can't quite say that it was a fair praye. That it was unselfish of me to do so. He's changed my heart to accept this current plan in front of me. Do I still want to stay home? Of course, but doing so would be selfish of me in not trusting and respecting what God has currently asked of Dave and I. Does this mean this plan is forever? Of course not. Two months after I go back to work, we may evaluate what we are doing and say "this isn't working," and just keep praying for God's provision in what he has for our family. He may stretch us to save more, to scrimp more and open our eyes to how this could happen. Currently I have no idea, but I do know one thing....for me to ignore all the ways God was already blessing us in our current jobs, with Dave getting free daycare, I get uniform allowance, and hardly pay any gas at all per week....yes we've done the math....it all makes sense. We are so blessed! I have a friend who is expecting twins in January, she has no choice but to quit her job and stay at home, which will force them to live off of some of their savings until her husband can find a better job. Yes, we are so truly blessed to be where God has placed us! I've had people say hurtful things to me about staying at home. Things that sting and are hard to just set aside and not hold against them. With that I repeat again that it doesn't matter what people say or think about us, what matters is that we are striving to live out God's will for our lives.
There are many options when it comes to scrimping and scraping, trying to make ends meet, and if your income is at a certain level you can qualify for state aid. Dave and I talked about it. If I were to not work at all, Dave were to only be working and never get a raise cause he is right at the cut off point, and live penny to penny paycheck to paycheck we could do it, but Dave doesn't feel comfortable doing so, and I respect him for that. He doesn't want to contribute to the current position of Illinois already being in the financial mess that it is, and how long will these programs really last anyway? Something may have to go and it could be something we are relying onto live if we choose that. So we chose not to. Do I think it's wrong to get aid? No, we just felt like it wasn't what God had for us.
Another thing that really helped solidify me going back to work was our giving. If we lived paycheck to paycheck there wouldn't be any money left over to bless people with. To invite people into our homes and afford feeding them. Let alone some areas that we are praying to be stretched in daily in giving...which God may or may not ask us to give large sums of money. Our tithe will never be something we compromise. It is commanded in the bible and we will not give that up. This can be frustrating at times cause if you see all the nice cars everyone else buys etc....well our tithe check could help us afford to get those things. It's a huge chunk of our salaries....second highest bill only being beat out by our mortgage payment. We've been comfortable at our current tithe rate for awhile, and whose to say God won't stretch us in this area.
I've realized since really praying in this area that the whole stay at home mom vs working mom battle is a brutal area. Full of judgement, envy, fear of disappointing others, and harsh bitter words. Is this truly how God expects us to love his children? By judging them? I used to be of them mindset that every mother was supposed to stay at home, they were just too selfish to figure out what needed to be cut out of their budget to figure out how to stay at home. I am so ashamed of myself for being in that category. I've actually realized how some stay at home moms could be just as selfish as working moms if they are being so selfish that their husband has to work 2 jobs to make ends meet, he is never home to see his family, husband never wanted her to quit her job in the first place but she whined and nagged enough that she got her way.....that's all wrong too. Being disrespectful to my husband? Definite sin. In this same way working moms really maybe relying on money instead of trusting God, but both situations...working moms and stay at home moms could also be being very obedient to what God has asked of them and trusting their husbands to lead them. This again is why I find it so important to stress....your family needs to do what God is leading you to do, not what the rest of the world is doing.
So what is our current plan? Well I am actually pretty excited about it. I've been able to find some really affordable health insurance to cover me once the baby is here, that actually has maternity coverage that starts immediately in case we get pregnant again quickly(not saying I'm planning that!) which most individual plans won't cover it for 12 months. This means I don't have to work full time since we were relying on my health insurance. I will be working 3 days a week and the baby will be going with Dave to work at the daycare he works at. I'm excited about this plan. Things really started to hit me about a month ago when we were talking about working and being a Christian in the work place in our small groups at church. I heard Dave talking about how much he loved his job and it just killed me to think about me being so selfish that I would rip him out of something he liked so much which wonderful hours where he would actually get to spend weekends at home and see us at night....something that doesn't exist in the restaurant industry at all...well that is just another blessing in and of itself!
God's plan is so wonderful even if it's much different then mine. It doesn't mean he won't take us down another path in the near future, but regardless I always trust that his plan is better than mine!

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Sunday, November 28, 2010

Where God's leading us now...

Saturday, November 20, 2010