Changes!

Wow, it has been a LONG time since anything was posted on this poor little blog. Fortunately, that is all about to change! The reason we haven't been posting anything is because we have made ZERO progress on our debt. I became a mortgage loan officer for Stewardship Mortgage back in September. That dramatically changed my income. My pay was 100% commission and that was tough for us. We battled and battled, tried to make it work, but in the end we knew that the loan officer job just wasn't in the cards for me. It wasn't for a lack of trying, our hearts just weren't in it. In order to be successful in that line of work you have be passionate about what you do because your pay is based entirely on how good you are. Because I wasn't very good at that job, I didn't make a whole lot which meant we couldn't pay off any debt.

In April, Steph and I decided it was time to move on from Stewardship and seek a new job for myself. It was hard to leave Stewardship, I loved my co-workers and loved the mission and heart of Stewardship. However, I had to be honest with myself and realize that being a loan officer just wasn't in my skill set. That was a tough pill to swallow. We sacrificed a lot for me to get my loan officer license and went through a lot with the income change. I was struggling with the decision until one night Steph said, "I don't want you working there anymore". She could see how miserable I was doing something I wasn't good at and didn't have a passion for. I'm so thankful she said that to me!

If I am to be completely honest, my heart is in youth ministry. I battled with that for a long time. A few years ago I was a junior high director at a church and I got pretty burnt out. I bit off more than I could chew and came away from that experience a little bitter. It wasn't anything the church did, I just wasn't spiritually ready for that experience. I said to myself that I never wanted to get back into youth ministry, but I just wasn't being honest with myself. That is a tough thing, self-honesty. We are SO good at talking ourselves into and out of different things. We convince ourselves we believe one thing when, in reality, the opposite is true. I have such a hard time admitting different truths in my life. I convinced myself I didn't want to be in church-centered youth ministry because of my own frustrations. Once I shed some of those lies I was feeding myself, I realized where my heart truly was.

As of today, I have taken a job at Starbucks to help pay some bills so we can pursue a life in ministry. This will allow us to be more involved in the youth group at our church and allow me to coach without worrying about missing work or having to balance that out. While this job and the ones to come won't allow us to make a ton of money, we are excited for this new chapter in our life and marriage. Thankfully, we will actually be able to chip away at our debt since the paychecks will be steady!

We have been through a lot in our first 2 years of marriage. We have had a total of 9 jobs between the 2 of us, lived in 3 different places, attended 4 different churches, and a million other changes. We understand that the life God gives us here on earth is short and we need to do all we can to impact His Kingdom. We have also come to realize that we probably won't live in the same house for 30 years or have one "career". All we are trying to do is focus on God and grow closer with Him. That is what we are trying to keep as our only goal. Debt, jobs, family, and whatever else is will be taken care of. God does not want us to worry about that. Our joy will not come from paying off debt or making a ton of money (or even doing a bunch of good, moral things). Our joy will come ONLY from knowing Him and keeping our eyes fixated on Him and His goodness.

- Brian