Everything is meaningless. Those are hard words especially when we are often looking to find meaning in everything we do.
The things I struggle with as a mom is disciplining my children and having a clean home. I want my discipline to matter to our children. I want our clean home to reflect how proud I am. However the repetitiveness of both tasks exhaust me and it seems my efforts are meaningless.
Finding meaning in the day to day chaos of life is hard. Lately I’ve been trying to make sense of it in everything we do.
16 years ago my life changed. As a young inexperienced first time mother, I almost killed my daughter and not a day goes by that I don’t feel blessed that God had a hand on our lives.
The week before my daughters 3rd birthday, I noticed that she wasn’t feeling well. She had no energy and just laid around all of the time. She always seemed to get sick around the holidays and I thought maybe she had the flu. With her 3rd birthday being the next day, I decided to take her into the urgent care pediatrician – in hopes that he could give her some medicine to make her feel better. I didn’t want her to miss her birthday party, but never in my mind could I imagine what was about to happen.
But before I go on with the story, let me give you a quick back story and tell you that doctors intimidate me. I’m not intimated by many people, but for some reason doctors intimidated me. Perhaps it was their years of schooling, their white coats or my lack of understanding of medical terms, whatever it was – I always took them at their word and had I not questioned this doctor, it’s possible that my daughter would be dead now.
I believe the doctor didn’t know what was wrong with my daughter. So he lied to me, told me she had an ear infection and gave me a prescription for amoxicillin. I believe he choose to tell me she had an ear infection because it was not something I could see visibly. I thought it was strange that she had an ear infection, since she hadn’t been tugging at her ear and I couldn’t grasp why that make her so tired? Something just didn’t seem right, I guess you can say my mother’s intuition kicked in. So I stepped out of my comfort zone and started questioning the doctor. I can’t recall all of the questions I had asked, except for one. “Was it normal for her to be this yellow?” Then he replied with, “That’s not her natural color?” I said no and I guess something triggered in him to make him want to do some more research and told us we needed to get a blood test.
It was a Saturday and all of the labs were closed, except for the adult urgent care, which was the office next to his. He told me to go over there and get her blood drawn, but they didn’t want to do it. I explained the situation, had them call the doctor and they finally agreed to draw her labs and I’m so thankful that they did. By the time we got home, we received a phone call telling us that we needed to go to emergency room right away and the on call pediatrician would be waiting for us.
We got to the emergency room and waited and waited and waited. There was no doctor to meet us and while we were waiting our daughter seemed like she was feeling better. We had been going about this for over 6 hours and were exhausted. Her birthday was in an hour and since I had scheduled an appointment for Tuesday with her pediatrician, we decided to leave the ER and go home. We told the front desk, but she didn’t seem to care, scratched our name off the list as we left. I had no idea her situation was life threatening when we left.
I don’t know who God had checking up on us, but someone did. We started getting calls at 12:30 am from the emergency room nurse asking us where we were at. This nurse tried to convince us over the phone to come back. I told her no and if this was so important, why didn’t they seen us right away. She gave a gazillion reasons, but I wasn’t listening. I’m freaked out now, in tears, not sure what to do, praying about the situation, asking God for clarification and that’s when I received a phone call from a doctor telling us we needed to come in. I thought to myself, if this doctor is taking time to call us, it must be serious, but I was still hesitant to return. I can remember him telling me that he understood if I didn’t want to go back to that ER, but I needed to take her to an ER tonight. He also promised that if I came back, they would see us right away, so we did.
As soon as we returned to the ER, they admitted her right away. While they were admitting her, I asked the doctor if she had an ear infection and he said no. What I didn’t know, was that blood test showed she had leukemic cells and she needed a blood transfusion right away because her hemoglobin level (which is basically the cells that carries oxygen from the lungs) was at a 2. The normal level for a child her age would be in the range of 11-13. That’s why it was so important for us to get bring her in. Had we not returned she probably wouldn’t have made it through the night. Later she was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. At the time I thought what a way to celebrate her birthday. But needless did I know – that it was indeed a celebration.
There were so many things that went wrong that night. I didn’t see it at the time but God showed us grace through so many people. From the lab agreeing to the test, the person who was checking on our ER status, the nurse who called us, the doctor who called us and I’m sure even more people that I’m not aware of. I’m so thankful that I can share my story and I’m thankful that God didn’t let this dumb 24 year old mom be afraid to question a doctor and let her pride get in the way of returning. Most of all I’m thankful that God healed my child and we are able to celebrate her 19th birthday today.
Welcome back, yesterday in Living on Less When It’s Not Enough Part 1 I shared with you how after paying all of our bills we had less than $70.00 to feed our family of 6 for two weeks and how I didn’t trust God that we would be able to make it on this amount. But after the end of two weeks we still had $55.08 left.
Continuing on with my story, today I’m sharing with you all of the events that occurred during these two weeks that proved God’s faithfulness.
The first thing that happened is we received an escrow check in the mail for $52.02. I was relieved knowing we could buy more groceries with this but at the end of the two weeks, we never used it. I guess it was God showing me that we still would have made it even without this check.
The next unexpected thing that happened, we returned an item at Walmart. The original item was no longer in stock so we found a replacement and ended up getting $20.00 back on a gift card. My husband points out to me — hey here is some extra stuff to buy groceries.
Then I received some coupons from Fresh and Easy and ended up buying $25.00 of groceries for $0.00. I had rewards points, coupons and a left over gift card for $7.00 and with the items I bought it just worked out perfectly.
This didn’t impact our income for these two weeks, but we also found out my husband got a salary increase. This was very unexpected because we were under the impression this would not happen this year.
I also scored some great deals shopping and was even able to stock up on some groceries. I found some awesome deals on cheese and lunch meats and which will last us several more weeks.
Now over the two week span we spent about $111.00 on groceries, toiletries and household necessities. Which averages to about $55.00 a week. This is amazing because we normally spend about $100.00 a week on groceries alone.
All of these events may seem like coincidences but I believe it was God showing me how much of an idiot I am and my belief that living on less isn’t possible. The stuff is right in front of us, yet we still deem it’s not enough.
We often look in our pantries, fridge and freezer and see stuff that we don’t want to eat. We actually have food on hand but we’d rather not make some of the stuff we have on hand.
I haven’t couponed in a long time and the only stockpile I really have is a few boxes of pasta and some canned beans.
This was my pantry, fridge and freezer and the end of our two weeks.
Pretty Bare huh? After my two week journey, I realized that what God gives me is enough and I am ashamed to constantly doubt him. I realized that his blessings won’t always just appear, that sometimes I have to work at it receiving them. I realize that he knows my finances but I control and must be disciplined to them.
Living on less is possible if we have/want to. Don’t doubt your abilities! If you are looking at reducing your debt, trying to make it to the next paycheck or survive a financial crisis you need to be aware of what you are spending and be willing to make sacrifices. It’s possible, you just have to want it. Living on less isn’t easy.
If you’ve found yourself in a similar situation, please comment below and share your story about living on less.
Living on less is hard since it never seems like we have enough. This is how our normal pay cycle goes. We are paycheck to paycheck people and sometimes the paycheck falls on a certain day to where if I paid everything that was due, we wouldn’t have enough to buy groceries and get through to the next pay period.
Well this happened to us a few weeks ago. We are discipline tithers and I realized that I was telling God that the money we had left just wasn’t enough. Luke 6:38 says: Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. So instead, I went ahead and paid all of the bills and I set out on a journey to put my finances to the test with God.
After everything was paid we had $209.76 left for 2 weeks. That may seem like enough but our gas tanks were empty and both my husband and I needed gas. We needed a full tank of gas and we need it to last us 2 weeks until our next payday. A full tank for both vehicles costed us $139.99 expected to last about 10 days. That left us with $69.77 to buy groceries to feed our family of 6. Living on less than $70.00 for two weeks, just didn’t seem possible. Yet I know that God knows our finances and that we tithe every week but I continue to tell him what he’s left me with is not enough.
So I prayed about it and decided I was going to fully submit to God and let him show me.
Matthew 6:26 says Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? This is a verse that constantly pops in my head when I doubt that God will provide.
“OK God, show me what you’ve got!” and wouldn’t you know it, when our two weeks were up and we had $55.08 left and we still had a few gallons of gas left.
Now if you are calculating what I just said, you’re probably calculating that we only spent $14.69 on food for those two weeks. We actually spent more.
In part 2, I’ll share with you the events that happened and what I believe to be God’s blessings for living on less.
Birth control pills are common in today’s society, especially with teens. Mothers are putting their daughters on it in hopes of preventing teenage pregnancy and to my surprise the doctors are encouraging it too.
I took my daughter in to see the gynecologist when she was 16 years of age. She had abnormal periods due to her low platelet count and we wanted to make sure she didn’t have any issues from the chemotherapy treatments she had when she was younger.
The doctor did a few tests and found that everything appeared to be normal and suggested that we put her on birth control. When I said no, the doctor looked at me as if I were the dumbest mother on earth. She started lecturing me on all the reasons why I should put my daughter on birth control. Some of the ‘so-called’ benefits were regular periods and clearer skin and of course pregnancy prevention.
I wasn’t willing to put my daughter on birth control just to have clearer skin and regular periods. Yes, I am concerned about pregnancy prevention, but I feel that giving teens access to birth control gives them the green light to have sex, become more sexually active and be exposed to sexually transmitted diseases. Since birth control is not 100% preventative, they should be using a condom anyways.
Talking about sex isn’t easy. Our children need to understand why not having sex is really the only way to prevent them from having sex.
Here are the 5 things we talked about:
I know that I cannot make this decision for my daughter. I can only guide her on what the bible teaches and what I know to be true and not worry about what normal is in our society.
How do you feel about teens and birth control?
In my mind Discipline is a dirty word. This year, I’m really challenging myself to be disciplined. I often look over my life and wonder why things aren’t happening but often fail to look within.
What do I mean fail to look within? We’ll I believe discipline starts with faith. I believe that GOD has a plan and is working within each of us. (Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart)
I trust GOD and I trust that he is working within my life. He’s paved a path for me, but yet I don’t follow. Why? Because I lack discipline. GOD is working through me, not for me. I know I’ve got to be more disciplined and do the work. Being lazy is only going to take me longer to get where he wants me to go.
If you feel like you are not getting where you need to go, stop and evaluate what steps have you taken to get where you want to go.
Are you feeling overwhelmed with debt? We’ll ask yourself…What changes have you made to get out of debt?
The Bible
Whatever your life is lacking, you need to find discipline. Then do what it takes to make it happen and know that GOD has your back!
I’ve been a stay at home mom for 3 years and right now I hate it. I’m exhausted! I feel like I’m so far underwater with everything and the tide just keeps raging in and I can’t come up for air. I enjoy being home for my family, but I don’t enjoy the duties that come along with it. When I’m working – I feel more adapted to deal with all of the crap that is handed to me, because I’m getting paid for it. At home I don’t. I just try to take it and smile as if I enjoy it and that’s really hard to do.
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It’s been a while since I’ve written about my faith and trusting God. I’m a strong believer of tithing and my intentions are to doing a post every Sunday as a way to give back on my blog as well. I hope you’ll find my Sunday Stories to be encouraging.
About 2 years ago our financial situation was very stressful. I wasn’t really putting God first with our finances. I would tithe a few dollars here and there, but that year was the year we disciplined ourselves to tithe 10% of our salary. Once we started tithing I felt God challenging me more and more to give. I didn’t understand why God would challenge me to give more when I was already doing what the Bible said to do. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to challenge me when I was only giving a few dollars? I just didn’t understand and Trusting God with this was really hard.
I know that money is one of the biggest things I struggle with. Trusting that God will provide and take care of everything, just didn’t seem possible. Maybe it’s because of all my years in finance, 2+2=4 Right? That made it so hard for me to think outside of the box. How could God change that? Why would he? Needless did I know that he would show me how.
One Sunday, God challenged me to give $300 dollars, and this really freaked me out. Why would God want me to do this. It was more than what we normally tithed and if we tithed this, it would cause all of our bills to fall behind. It didn’t make sense to me. Truly God wouldn’t want me to do this and spend our next few paychecks catching up on late fees and cause our bills to fall behind. I even went so far to questioned God on whether or not I was hearing him correctly. So I threw my hands up and said Lord I’ll do what you want, no matter what! Just so I can know that I’m actually hearing you, can you tell my husband to confirm the amount you want me to give. Right before we left, I grabbed a check from the checkbook and was ready to give, but I really wasn’t Trusting God.
When we got to Church , I was hesitant. I didn’t really know how to ask my husband, but I did. I asked my husband how much I was supposed to give, he said I don’t know, that’s between you and God. (He knew I was struggling with this extra giving) I said I know, but I want you to tell me the amount. He said, ” $300.00 and I don’t know why I know that.” Now you must understand that my husband doesn’t remember things like this. Specific amounts especially. He can buy gas, and a few minutes later forget the amount he put in the gas tank. All I could do was smile and thank the Lord for showing me that I was hearing him correctly. I was happy to reach into my purse and write my check. However my check, wasn’t a check it was a deposit slip.
God tested me! He wanted to teach me to trust him and I passed! Once I understood that, I no longer felt the feeling that I needed to give that money. God showed me that I don’t need to struggle with my money. He showed me I just needed to trust him and he will provide. I was so relived and comforted that I knew from this point on trusting God would be easier.
Even though the things we encounter may not make sense to us, just remember it doesn’t have to. We will never know the answers as long as we breath air on this earth. Trusting God is hard, I guess that why it’s called faith.
Do you have a story you’d like to share about
Love this story? Check out my other post Breaking The Cultural Idol of Entitlement.
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I am the typical American. I live in a house that is under valued, I have debt that I’m paying off and to make it worse we live on a one household income. I want to live the way our culture tells us, that I need this, that I need that. That I’m owed this, that I’m owed that.
I want to drive fancy cars, own nicer things and live in a bigger house with more land. I’m entitled right? My husband works, brings home good money and with borrowed debt, I can make our dreams come true.
We’ll you know what? Doing that isn’t going to make me happy or my family happy. In fact it’s going to stress out our family because of the increased debt we are taking on.
I’m choosing to break the cultural idol of entitlement and live with contentment.
I don’t want to be a debt borrower. I want to pay for everything in cash. I don’t want to own fancy cars that I have to pay a fortune for. I don’t want a bigger house, to fill up, with more stuff I don’t need.
Proverbs 22:7 The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
Love this story? Check out my other post God First
Want to get connected with other Christians? Join my new Social Christians Facebook Group