30 Days of thanks

1. God
2. Peter
3. Julie
4. Seth
5. Paige
6. Extended family
7. Best friends
8. Insurance
9. The persecuted church
10. The Bible
11. My church family
12. Health
13. Sanity
14. Work
15. Struggles
16. Knowledge
17. Books
18. Freedom
19. The founding fathers of the United States
20. Veterans
21. Comforts
22. Happiness (optimism)
23. Technology
24. Missionaries
25. Heaven
26. Food
27. Television (entertainment)
28. Soft toilet paper (couldn't skip that one)
29. Beauty in the world
30. Cultures from around the globe

Sacrifice

We recently took a pretty large financial hit that knocked us to our knee's. This has happened several times in the past few years with our financial status. Peter and I decided years ago that I would stay home with the children. More recently we started to home school the children. Due to the financial stress many families would have given in and mom would have gone back to work. Thanks to my wonderful husband that is not the case in our family. We put a very high value on our children being cared for and taught at home rather than some where else. Because of our values, and the belief that my being home is the best possible option for our family Peter has gone out and landed a second job. He is now working two jobs so that his children can be raised up in the way he believes is best for them. I am helping slightly with babysitting on the side, but that does not bring in much. I could not be any more proud of the man I married. Most men would fold under the pressure, but Peter took the bull by the horns. Some people do not/will not agree with this decision that has been made. All I can say to others who do not agree with our lifestyles, and values is that we are firm believers in to each his own. There is no one size fits all lifestyle or family unit. What is right for our family is not right for every family and vica versa. We live our lives in a way that we believe to be the best for us, and anyone that cares for us will take that information for what it is worth and support our decisions.

Proud of who we are

My life without a doubt is not what I thought it would be, but I wouldn't change one single part of it. We recently received a huge financial hit that has forced Peter, and myself to evaluate our financial future. We have both been in debt for many years, and though we have tried here and there to pay some of it off we have not made it a priority. We feel that the financial problems we continue to encounter are a direct result of our indebtedness. Though it is not debt that is causing huge monthly payments or anything like that we feel that if we were not in debt we would have a better financial footing. We have now made a serious commitment to get out of debt and stay that way. We have both taken on new ways of earning extra income, and are serious about using the extra income to pay off debt. We have a clear cut plan to pay it off, and will stick with it. We see our lives as extremely blessed even though we are going through trials. I could list endlessly all the wonderful things of our lives, but the blessings never stop. We have spent the past few days thanking God for the ability to pay this debt even though it will be hard. We know that getting financially stable is the best thing for our family in the long run, and hopefully going through these trials with us will teach our children to not get themselves in similar situations as adults. We are strong, and proud of who we are!