Over the last several weeks M and I have been hearing from various people how courageous we are for taking on this adoption. M warned me after she went to the doctor that we needed to make sure we were being humble throughout this process. It would be very easy to hear someone tell you how great you are for doing this and start to puff up yourself. That is not what we are about. We are trying to glorify God through this and listen to Him.

The thing is that M and I are not any different from anyone reading this blog. We are very ordinary people. There is nothing truly special about us and yet God has called us to do this. If you look throughout the Bible, God is always using regular, ordinary people to do His will. Look at the 12 disciples for example. A good portion of them were fisherman which was a very common job in their time. I would be willing to bet that there were hundreds of boats on the water the day that Jesus called out to John. What about Matthew who was a tax collector? Another ordinary job in their time.

I think people are afraid to be ordinary. I think that we see the “famous” people in our world today and want to be like them. I, for one, do not want to be like them. Most of them are not making an impact in this world, or perhaps they are, but in the wrong way.

As I look back on my life of 31 years of life, I am already ashamed of how little I have done for God. I regret all the time that I spent on dumb things of this life. I have been on this Earth roughly 11,500 days and I wonder how many of those days did I answer God’s calling? Each day He has a purpose for me and I hope in the future I am able to fulfill that.

So I have titled this blog post “You too…” because I believe that God is calling you too. I know some of you may be thinking, “Whoah, I definitely do not think I could adopt a special needs child.” My answer to that is, no problem. We all have different gifts from God. In that way we are all unique to fulfill a specific purpose in His plan. Your purpose may not even be something monumental. It could be to pray with someone you run into one day.  It might be to volunteer at a local place to serve those less fortunate than you. Do not underestimate the small actions presented to you each day. 

This world is full of hurting people who are reaching out and looking for answers. Let us be the hands and feet of Jesus!

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 

-Romans 12:12

I’ve realized over the past two months that my patience has varying limits for different things.  I always thought I was pretty patient, and for most things, I still think I am.  

~Waiting in line at Walmart

~Waiting for Josie to stop stalling at bedtime

~Waiting for my coffee pot to finish when I forget to set the morning timer

~Waiting for Hayden to finally emerge from basketball practice that was over 25 minutes ago

~Waiting for this dratted snow to melt

~Waiting for my videos to upload for work

~Waiting for my dog to stop trailing behind me all day … nope, sorry. NO patience for that.

In general, I’m pretty proud of my levels of patience.

But when it comes to waiting on other people during this adoption, I’m finding my reserve of patience in that category to be extremely small.  Next to nothing actually.  And while I won’t say I’m proud of that, I also won’t deny its truth.   

Now that we have a timeline, a due date, my patience seems to have been swapped out with urgency and I’m having quite a hard time keeping it in check.  August 18, 2021.  That’s when our Dossier is due in our boy’s country.  And right now there is literally NOTHING more we can do but wait.  There are steps in our Dossier Checklist, one thing unable to be completed without the thing before it.  And truth be told, no one has been dragging their feet, I just feel an anxiousness for it to go faster! 

It is really important to me that through this process I handle myself with grace, not only because we are opening up and sharing the whole process with all of you, but also because we know God is writing this story and who are we to question his timing?  But if I were to be straight with you, I worry that as we continue, my grace will become harder and harder to grasp.  And it’s early.  Our time of waiting has truly been very small.

But you guys, I walk past my dresser (slash adoption files organizing station) and see these three photos.  Our kids.  I see our smallest boy with those wispy hairs that grow low on his forehead and those long gorgeous eyelashes and all that grace I’m reaching for tries to sidestep me.  It is hard and my always-ten-step-ahead brain keeps warning me that if we don’t check things off soon, our timeline is going to get stressed. 

And then I feel selfish, because really, what have I waited for?  I know people, and have friends I love, who have children waiting in countries that won’t even entertain the thought of opening up the adoption process again.  That is a wait I cannot fathom, and yet I complain about things not moving fast enough and annoy D with my, “how much longer should we wait before we call?”  and “have you heard anything yet?” questions.  

What’s the saying?  “Hurry up and wait.”  I’m good with the “hurry up”.  It means we are making progress, moving forward, getting closer to the day we can scoop up our boy and pour love into him.  I’m not so good with the “and wait”.  The wait has us at a standstill, and my heart tells me that’s not good enough for our boy.  

In the meantime I plan to try and turn my anxiousness toward our fundraisers and preparing his room (which helps me feel as if we are still moving forward) and soaking up every precious moment with my sweet babies here.  Ultimately, just hoping to keep my urgency and grace in a healthy balance.   

Thank you, as always, to everyone who has supported us and continues to do so.  Thanks for allowing me these little therapy sessions. We are so grateful for all of you! 

🧡 Facebook: www.facebook.com/LoveWorthy2018

🧡 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loveworthy18/

🧡 e-mail: loveworthy18@gmail.com

🧡Paypal: paypal.me/LoveWorthy

Last Friday felt like such an important day.  

We worked out all our confusion on the application to adopt our little guy, got our documents notarized, and submitted them to our agency.  Those documents then went to the adoption agency in our boy’s country and will be presented to the government.  So now we wait. We wait to see if they will approve our request.  If they will allow us to pursue his adoption.  That’s our biggest prayer right now.  And we’d love if you would join us in that prayer.    

Our boy.  Our little guy.  I’m sure you caught those words and I wanted to share our hearts on that.  

Legally, officially, according to anyone else, he is not ours yet.  But here’s the thing; in our hearts and in our minds, he already is.  He is loved, he is part of our family, he is prayed for and longed for and missed. 

Is that dangerous for our feelings?  

Yes, of course it is. 

There is no guarantee just yet that we will get to bring him home, but what kind of parents would we be if we held our love at a distance?  When our babies are born to us we love them unconditionally from the moment we know of their existence.  When our eyes see them for the first time, we are filled up with a joy and love that no one can adequately put into words.  Why should this boy be loved any different?  Is he less worthy of our complete devotion and love because of his location?  His circumstance? His disability? Our distance?  We know he exists.  We’ve seen his sweet face.  Why would we withhold our love? 

When our babies are born we do not know their personality, who they will become, what struggles they will endure, how they will swell and break our hearts…and yet no one could ever question our feelings for them. Why would we pretend this boy is less to us because he’s not in our arms yet?  Because he’s already lived a part of his life without us? 

He is our boy.  He is loved.  He is prayed for.  He is longed for.  He is missed.  

We can see him in our family, we are planning for his arrival.  We are working hard to be there for him as fast as we can.  His photo sits framed on my dresser and I speak to him every single day.   We are learning what we can to be the best parents for him.  We are living, and will continue to live, as if he is already ours because he deserves parents who love him, unconditionally, before they even know him.  He deserves a family who will do the hard work on his behalf, both now and in the future.  He is worthy of the same love every single one of God’s children are worthy of…simply because God calls him son.  

So what happens if it doesn’t work out?  We will be shattered.  We will mourn OUR loss, while still praising God for giving him a family, even if it isn’t us.   And then we will choose to love another boy –  just as hard. 

But the bigger question I think, is what if it DOES work out?  What kind of parents would we be if we withheld our love from him, for even a second, just to spare the possibility of OUR hurt feelings?  To me, that would make us undeserving of the privilege of calling him our own.  

So we will continue spending each day, moving closer to our boy, loving him, and praying for the day he’s here with us.

If you want to follow along with more frequent updates, you can see those on our Love Worthy page.

It has been quite amazing how things have so quickly turned from ‘planning for our adoption’ to ‘we are adopting’. I’m so thankful for all the work and preparations we made ahead of time because already I am finding myself unable to sleep with all that is swirling in my head.

To recap where we are at, we have signed with an agency and been accepted into their Eastern European Adoption Program. I have since learned that we need to be very careful about what details we share on public social media, and even mentioning the country is something we need to steer clear of. We have done all our initial paperwork, applied to an agency to have our home study started and have our first interview next week, and have paid for and started our training. There are ten hours of training that need to be completed for both our adoption and home study agency. We’re about 25% through it.

Our agency works in checklists to help keep us organized and on track. (see, with my love of checklist, clearly they were meant to be!) We’ve completed Steps 1 and 2 of our first check list, with the 3rd Step being partially complete (waiting on our home study to start and our training to be completed).

I will admit, that when we started, the load of forms and attachments felt a bit daunting already. You really do just have to sit down, and go one by one, reading through, getting organized, and working on completion. We’ve both since calmed down a bit I think!

We are working purposefully and steady because we also received the forms yesterday needed to request permission from the Eastern European government to adopt a specific little guy!!!

Like I said, things have quickly changed! But all I can say is…God. God did this. When we chose to switch our country of adoption EVERY SINGLE THING fell into place. And the very moment I opened the ‘waiting children’ link and laid eyes on this boy, I started to cry. I cannot explain the emotion that overtook me, and I knew we were meant to try and bring him home.

I do want to take just a moment and explain that while we are sure that we want this boy in our family, we are also VERY sure God has a plan, and if this doesn’t work out, we will be heartbroken, and then we will keep going. Every one of those children in that file deserve a family and several caught our attention, but for whatever reason, we feel God is asking us to move for this one specific boy right now.

So as you can imagine, knowing that I’m all emotion and D is all logic, I was ready to move 1.5 seconds after laying eyes on him, and D needed a few days to consider his disabilities, the changes in our home that would need to be made, and how he saw this boy fitting into our family. He said he’d let me know for sure Sunday (I already knew what his answer would be though, because he’s outward logic, but his internal emotions play pretty hard too) and by Saturday he had already said, “Let’s go get him!”

I wish I could show you his photo and tell you all about him. Please forgive us for not being able to share these things. Perhaps as we learn more we will be able to share a little bit more but I can’t be sure. In the meantime, we certainly do not want to do anything to jeopardize our chances of bringing him home. What I can tell you is that he is so incredibly beautiful. His needs are significant but there is so much potential in him that we cannot wait to start fostering. I can tell you that we are so excited, so full of love already for this boy, and also scared. There is much we will need to learn to care for him. But we also know that he is 100% worth it.

So for now we’re asking you to pray.

Specifically pray that we can get going quickly with our home study so we can complete our application to adopt him.

Pray that the government will see our hearts in our application and grant us permission to adopt him.

Pray that our upcoming fundraiser goes well because now more than ever, we need to make sure we have the funds available when needed. (I’ll do a financial post soon.)

And pray for this little guy and his health until he can be brought into a family (hopefully ours!).

We love you all!

“When this adoption is over we’re getting a truck!”

That was the statement D made as we drug, branch by branch, the remnants of the newly sawed down tree into the burn pile.  

At first those words come off as almost bitter, to someone who doesn’t know him, they likely would.  But knowing my husband, they struck me as something completely different.  

Another sacrifice for his family.  

Yes, he wants a truck.  Yes, it would make things so much easier.  How many times during this process have we had to borrow a truck from family or friends or ask them to pick things up for us on their way through town?  Too many to count really. 

So yes, we actually kind of need a truck.  We could afford one too, but we wait, because our cars are paid off and that money goes to our future son (or daughter) instead.  And because of that, and because I am privy to the many sacrifices he’s made and is making for us, I know he’s not bitter.  We will always be more important than his wants.  

D and I are pretty much complete opposites, in our personalities, our rationale, our interests, our processes and our demeanor.  The bickering is real around here and still, our relationship works and is solid in ways that I could spend another whole post talking about.  And when it comes to this adoption, from the outside, we also look completely different.  

If you ask D about the adoption you’re going to get a couple short sentences, telling you that we’re preparing our home and haven’t started paperwork.  You’ll be left probably wanting more details.  Me on the other hand, when asked about our adoption, will launch into a ten minute, emotion filled, explanation of our whys, hows, whens, and ifs.  You will be left probably wishing you’d asked him instead! 🙂 

Different personalities.  

You read this blog and all my wordiness as I contemplate, struggle, progress, and get overwhelmed.  I talk it out, working out my own insecurities and internal debates on these pages and welcome you all to take a look into my crazy.  D has the internal list, systematically working through the things that need to be done, step by step, logically, behind the scenes working.  In every progress we’ve made we’ve been a team, I’m loud, upfront, comforted by all the people while he’s diligent and focused, doing what no one sees (unless I share) and usually doing most of the hard work.  Without him I’d have twenty things started and nothing finished. Without me he’d not be prepared for fundraisers or grants when the time came.  

Different processes. 

I was recently talking to my hugely supportive and kind cousin about what traveling overseas for adoption would look like for us.  I told her that D would be the rock at the start of the trip.  His planning, his direction, his problem solving nature will be what I depend on when I’m flipping out with anxiety about not knowing what to do.  On the other hand, my emotion and calm ‘momness’ will be what we need at the end of the trip, when we have a tiny human in our care and all his ‘fix-it’ tendencies will be lost on a scared, overwhelmed little person that doesn’t know us.  

Different demeanors. 

Our differences bring out the little squabbles in our marriage, but they also make teamwork in our marriage possible. 

When I’m rambling on about paint colors, he’s doing the construction and building what really matters. 

When I’m doing paperwork, he’s the one who’s looking up and providing the important information they require. 

When I’m making flyers and selling tickets and planning fundraisers, he’s helping with set up, cutting and sanding boards, staying home with J so my mom can be there helping me, taking care of the heating and burnt out lightbulbs. 

When I’m banking all my paychecks for our adoption fund, he’s working to provide for our family AND putting extra away for adoption. 

When I’m having breakdowns, he’s building me back up. 

There’s no part of this process that he’s not equally, if not more invested in and I’m so glad I have someone walking beside me who is all the things I’m not.  It makes for a pretty stinking good partnership!  Not just for adoption, but for life. ❤️

Typically I try to make these blog posts somewhat cohesive, attempting to connect my spastic thinking into something that I can share in a way that makes sense.  

This is not one of those times and I’m sorry.  This time, if you choose to keep reading, you’re getting my jumbled mess of thoughts and feelings as they tumble out of my head and onto this page.  

It’s been a bit since I’ve shared much here or on Facebook, not because there’s nothing going on, but because there’s too much going on.  

The fourth bedroom is coming along.  This room is bringing up so many emotions in me, it’s like every time I walk in, I’m slammed with them.  I probably won’t be sharing much progress until it is closer to finished just because I am struggling to articulate my feelings about it.  

Passport appointments have been made and everyone in the family will be travel ready when the time comes.  Trying to find a time when they were open, D wasn’t working, and H didn’t have practice was challenging so we ended up with two separate appointments! 

COVID entered our home last week. Somehow we still have three of the four of us negative, but we’ve been isolating from everyone else to be sure.  That means everyone at home, schedules disrupted, and now with it getting colder, a little bit of stir crazy boredom.  We have been trying to get out on walks but those days are coming to an abrupt end.  School also went virtual again until the end of the month so even when D goes back to work, we will still be doing school from home.  Little social J has been asking several times a day to see her people, she doesn’t understand.  While she will likely never remember this pandemic, we see how it is affecting her and hope for a time very soon when she can have a little more stability in her little day to day life.  

We’re in the midst of planning and selling for our second and final fundraiser for this year, hosting a sign painting party with a winter/holiday theme.  We weren’t able to leave as much time for advertising this time around, so we’re hoping it will be as successful as the first.  (Let me know if you want more information!) 

The difficult decision was also made this week to cancel our Final-Family-of-Four vacation in February.  Our Disney cruise had been paid for and scheduled for some time, but cruise lines just keep pushing back their dates for reopening.  We didn’t want to risk losing any of the money we have paid and this was the safest option.  We considered choosing a different vacation, but with everything changing so much, we didn’t feel confident any big trip could be a guarantee for us.  Plus, we didn’t want to go on a consolation trip.  I can’t tell you how hard it was for me to admit that this was the right choice.  I get these plans in my head, and make expectations for how things will turn out, and then I become so set on it that I have a hard time budging from that vision.  But this was the right move and I actually felt such a relief of stress once we decided to stop waiting it out.  So the cruise just may become our First-Family-of-Five trip instead.

That’s our latest.  And hopefully it doesn’t sound ‘complainey’.  I know everyone, everywhere is living a type of life they’ve never lived before.  

P.S. I’m putting up Christmas in our home this week.  I am typically very strict about giving Thanksgiving its due, but we’re not hosting this year and we are stuck inside for six more days, so I’m jumping on this early festivities bandwagon.  Plus Hallmark has Christmas movies playing and Walmart has Peppermint Mocha coffee creamer…so why not??

If you’d like to stay up to date with our journey, be sure to subscribe to this blog. We won’t see your information, but you’ll be notified each time we update. And be sure to follow our Facebook Page for more frequent news! Love to you all!

It’s been a minute since I’ve given you all an update of where we are on our progress, but little by little, even in the midst of a pandemic, we are checking items off our list.

I first posted this specific checklist last November, so if you’ve been keeping track of our (tentative) timeline, we’re down to months. Four months actually, before we said we would begin paperwork. So much has been accomplished over the last year and so much is currently on-going so I felt it time to update this checklist. (The new information is in this color)

√ Start an adoption savings account . This was the very first thing we did and we set it up so that every month money automatically gets deposited into that account. It’s a non-negotiable in our budget. We have kept nearly every cent I have earned at my job into a separate account that will be added to our adoption fund after taxes. We roughly have $15,000 completely devoted to our adoption. We have savings as well that will be used, but for now it’s being used on our home projects and we won’t know what can be transferred until it’s closer.

√ Restructure our spending and build a budget that we would stick to. A great friend mailed me the Dave Ramesy book after we talked about budgeting and we got started right away. We have been living on this budget for the most part, over the past year. Of course, there are months that we get a little carried away, but we’ve also been able to handle additional ‘pop-up’ expenses without dipping into our savings (and still ADDING to our savings) and I’m pretty proud of us for that.

√ Pay off our cars. This was part of eliminating any additional payments.

√ Eliminate all other debt. As of now, our home is our only debt.

√ Have one stay at home parent. Leaving my career has been one of the most terrifying choices I’ve made. Knowing, however, it would be necessary to care for a special needs child.

√ Build our savings in case of emergency. This is also a part of the ‘Baby Steps’ Dave Ramsey outlines in his book. Our savings has been our source of paying for our home renovations, but we continue to deposit a set amount monthly and it has been steadily growing.

√ Find alternate (and steady) income for me so we can continue to grow our adoption funds. I want to write a post about this separately once I feel things are certain enough to share publicly. I apologize for the vagueness and hope you understand, but God is working in BIG ways on this one, so I have checked it off. Ahhh, I remember typing that and being so worried something would happen and it wouldn’t work out. But it did! My job at #SocialSchools4EDU has been an enormous blessing and a main reason we have the money we do for our adoption. Not to mention, during COVID I’ve been able to work from home, on my own schedule, and continue to contribute…a huge blessing I’ll be forever grateful for!

√ Build a 4th bedroom in the basement. Our plan is to start this right after the holidays and it involves installing a new egress window, framing the walls and closet for drywall, running electric for outlets, installing drywall, installing flooring, adding a drop ceiling, painting, and finally moving furniture in. If you’ve been following you know this is done! H has moved in to his new room and loves it, J moved into his old room and it got all spruced up for her, and this week I will begin painting the room that will be our third child’s.

🔲 Renew Passports. Essential for our adoption and the next item on our checklist. This one is in process. We have new photos, paperwork completed, and just need to go in to have it done.

🔲 Take one more big family vacation. We went back and forth on this one, knowing the money would help in other areas but ultimately wanting that time with our family of four before everything changes so drastically. The truth is, we don’t know what this new life will look like, and how long it will take before we find our new ‘normal’. Having a child who will be in high school during this process and quickly heading off to college, the thought that we might miss this opportunity, convinced me it was the best decision. We’ve taken honeymoons, and baby-moons, and ‘our last family of three’ vacations. This vacation seems fitting. They have (and will) all be celebratory of the strength of our family bond as it is currently, and looking forward to what we will become. Oh this one has become a bit stressful. Our planned cruise has been booked and paid for since I wrote this, but…COVID. We are at a place where we have to decide in the next few weeks if we are going to wait it out or get our refund and plan something new. Whatever we do, I have no doubt it will still be a fantastic time.

The following items are either on-going or out of order due to our lack of knowledge at this point.

🔲 Bank Vacation and Sick Days. This process, depending on what country we end up choosing, will require up to three visits. It’s a lot of time off work, so preparing for this in advance is critical. At this time, we’re also dealing with a changing system due to travel restrictions, so the amount of trips and the duration of each are up in the air. We’re just hoping to be able to both travel together.

√ Investigate and develop fund-raising ideas/plans and research grants. The sad fact is that an adoption like this often cost anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 barring any complications. Is it worth it? No question. Is it terrifying? Definitely. As we are starting to learn more of what to expect, we are fining out that we really need to plan for that higher number. We have begun fund-raising already (our first one brought in almost $800) and have a pretty solid plan for each of our future fundraisers. Pre-planning is proving to be very helpful and early support has given me all the warm and fuzzy feelings! As far as grants, we can’t apply for any yet, but I have a spreadsheet of everything we will apply for and we’ve begun the forms already.

🔲 Investigate Medicaid for on-going medical care upon our return with our new child. This is one of those things I know will likely become part of our normal, but neither of us understand how it works just yet.

√ Research agencies to work with. We are hopeful that someone will be able to point us in the best direction when we are ready. More and more we feel pulled to Ukraine for our adoption and know exactly which adoption agency we will go with for that path. We have also spoken with the agency we will use for our Home Study and feel they are a perfect fit.

🔲 Have a Home-Study conducted.

🔲 MASSES of paperwork that I don’t understand yet. I will modify this last item once we have begun.

If you'd like to stay up to date with our journey, be sure to subscribe to this blog. I won't see your information, but you'll be notified each time we post. And be sure to follow our Facebook Page for more frequent updates! Love to you all!

Do you ever just sit back, contemplating the days you just lived through, and marvel at how strangely beautiful and completely ironic life can be?

Like the way exceptionally different emotions can come at you, one after another, or all at once. 

How sadness mixes with joy, and feelings of loss remain while you’re filled up with gratitude. 

How one day you can be freaking out over paint samples and then overwhelmed by support and then brought down by loss all while the excitement of anticipation lingers.  

Life is weird. 

Early this week I stood in the middle of the empty fourth bedroom, having just prepped the walls for painting, and I let myself get in God’s way.  The enormity of being in OUR CHILD’s room felt like too much.  I was ready to paint the walls for a child I didn’t know.  And all those sneaky, doubt filled questions found their way in.  

What if I feel like we’re going to Ukraine because that’s where MY heart is?  But what if it’s because God put that there? 

What if we pick a child because he fits our own timeline or our comfort levels and in the process God shows us who He planned for us?  What if they weren’t the same child? What do we do then? 

What if we start all of this with ZERO idea who we’re going to adopt and we never hear God give us the answer? 

What if I’m imagining a little boy because it FEELS right and I’m not being open to what God says is right? 

You guys, these ‘what if’s’ are my downfall every time.  They get to me and mess with my head.   They are the devil’s way in with me. 

Because WHAT IF WE MESS THIS UP?!

Talking it out later D had the most simple reply and everything just quieted down in my head.  He said, “What if God’s request wasn’t that specific?”  

We just need to keep praying and listening, but I have a new sense that once we feel called to a child, it will be right, because how could taking ANY of these children out of an orphanage into a family be wrong? 

So I picked out some paint samples.  

Keep moving forward though doubts.  

In the midst of my doubt day, our first fundraiser was just around the corner.  There is so much emotion wrapped up in this fundraiser.  As I’ve stated before the irrepressible gratitude to those openly supporting us when we’ve given little but our plans for adoption, is a wonder.  

Our fundraiser sold out.  Not only sold out but because four people wanted a sign but couldn’t attend, it over sold! The donations of items needed for the event, the volunteers, the discounts provided on what we had to buy…all of it, so bewildering and overwhelming having family, friends, and acquaintances step out in faith with us.    

The next day we traveled to Kentucky to say ‘good bye for now’ to the most wonderfully strong, outspoken, loving, and down to earth woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. This world was a better place for the one hundred years she spent living here and I’m so honored to have been able to call her family.  I see her same strong will in my daughter and will always be grateful J got to meet her great, GREAT grandmother. 

As the next week began, one of us got released from quarantine (test was negative but rules are rules) and another of us got sent home.  

I can’t quite seem to settle in any emotional state because it just all keeps changing, ebbing and flowing from one feeling to the next, one extreme to another, one trial, one blessing, and at times colliding in a mix of opposing sentiment.  

Life is weird.  

But in the loss, the stress, the tension, the anxiety, it is always, always beautiful.  

Hey there! Devin here, just had something on my heart that I wanted to write a blog post about. Hope you enjoy it.

10% of something does not seem like a lot when you think about it. Let’s say you have 10 cookies and I asked you to give me 1 of them. You might think, “Sure, I still have 9 cookies and that is plenty for me.” You would have just given me 10% of your cookies and never thought twice about it. Now what if I asked you to give 10% of your paycheck every time you get paid? That 10% certainly seems like a much larger number and a much harder thing for you to do.

Today I would like to tell you a story of 2 people who decided that God has blessed them greatly, and that they should be returning back to God what he gave them. Flashback about 4 and a half years ago, you will find that M and I were living as most people do. When we got paid we would pay our bills and whatever was left we used to buy things that we wanted. One Sunday we heard a sermon at church about giving God his 10% and if I remember right it was about testing God. M felt like this was something we should start doing and that is where our journey began.

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! -Malachi 3:10

It was hard at first to give away 10% of our income every 2 weeks. We were not being financially responsible with the money God had entrusted us with. We spent more money than I care to disclose on eating out. Still we did it, and lo and behold, nothing changed! The thing about God is that he wants us to be faithful to him. Sometimes he asks us to take a huge leap off of a cliff (metaphorically) and other times he just wants us to put one foot in front of the other. Taking us down a path that we would not have chosen on our own.

Around the same time that M and I starting tithing (10% of income in biblical terms) I had also applied for a position at Kankakee Valley REMC. At the time both M and I worked for Oregon-Davis Schools, and we both felt that perhaps it was time for one of us (me) to look for another job. We were worried that if the school closed we would both be without a job. So I applied for the position and then heard nothing for almost 3 months. All through this time though we were being faithful with our tithes and making some budgetary adjustments in our life. Finally the call came with a job interview and eventually a job offer. Such a blessing from God!

Now it would be nice if our story ended here and some of you might even think, “Eh that was just luck”. Perhaps you are right so let’s continue on. Fast forward to the time when M felt like it was time to follow God’s call for us to adopt a special needs child. All through this time we had been tithing, but still not being that financially responsible with our money. I remember one embarrassing moment for me. I was at Burger King buying breakfast and our debit card failed. Our checking account was out of money. I guilt-fully handed over our credit card and left with my food. Yikes! We knew some changes had to be made, especially if we were going to be able to afford an adoption.

Shortly after this time I was going through a rough time at my job. M had been praying for me and one day I saw a job for an IT Manager at Marshall Co REMC. M and I talked about it and I applied. I was given an interview and eventually negotiated a job offer! Again you might be thinking this was just luck, but I tell you it was an answer to a prayer. This position came with such a substantial pay raise that M and I started having discussions about her staying home full time. We knew that a special needs child would require this anyways and M wanted more time with J.

Just a reminder that all through this time we had been faithfully giving our 10% to God. I will admit that it was not easy and there were times that I thought we could buy a new car with the money we are giving to God. That did not matter though. We are called to be faithful and we made that choice.

So now I have this awesome new job, the story ends there .. wrong! God was still doing things in our lives because we have been faithful to him. M and I started having weekly budget meetings to go through our finances. We started using a program through Keybank called HelloWallet. Which they have since discontinued and I am extremely unhappy with them! (cough Mom!) We were able to track where every dollar of our money went and it was pretty shocking to see some of the results. We spent some time determining what we actually needed to spend money on and how much that cost. Plus we gave ourselves a small budget to spend on eating out, entertainment, etc. Just like people who cheat on their diet, we knew without a little leeway that we would not follow this. Time went on and there were times we had to make tough choices when it came to money. We had to tell people we could not go out for their birthday because it did not fit in our budget. Embarrassing? Absolutely, but I am not here to impress you. We are doing our best to follow God. Time continued on and we started to realize how much of a fool we had been with our money. We were saving money like it was growing on the trees in our backyard. We were able to pay off both of our cars in 1 year, partly thanks to our tax return, but mostly due to us being responsible. We still were able to go on vacations and remain within our budget.

Fast forward to today and M is now at home full time. She actually got a job working for an amazing company and she gets to do it from home! If you have been following our blog you will know that we have had quite a few hiccups along this journey, but due to our tithing and trusting God we have been able to pay for it. There have been several times that something has come up and all of a sudden we have a check in the mail. Whether it was a repayment from the hospital, tax return, insurance payout, God was always there providing when we felt like we were not sure what to do next. So as I finish this post out I would like to challenge you to the tithe test. If you are not giving God his 10%, let’s face the truth, it all belongs to him and if he decides to take it all away from you he can and will, then I invite you to try it. Give 10% of your next 4 paychecks and see what God does in your life. There is a catch here though. You cannot do this while grumbling. God wants a cheerful giver. I think if you stop and truly think about it, you know that we (those of us in 1st world countries) live such a blessed life.

If you want learn more of our story or learn how we budget I would be happy to share more. Sometimes all you have to do is ask that first question. We are no Dave Ramsey, but would be happy to help out in any way!