He says, "Money". She hears, "Glsnmicklboqgtaypvx"

Financial Peace University.  (Deeee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eeeep breath).  Okay, I'm going to be honest.  You're looking at the biggest sceptic when it comes to Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University.  Until now.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Financial Peace University (FPU), it is a program taught by Dave Ramsey.  Who in the world is that?  He's the successful talk radio host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Dave Ramsey Show, a New York Times best selling author, and a personal finance expert.  And better yet, he practices what he preaches.  With a degree in finance, and a family background in real estate, he started out of college with nothing. By the time he was 26 years old, he had become a millionaire and built a four million dollar real estate business.  Then he lost it all, filing bankruptcy, by the time he was thirty.  He has learned from his mistakes and has since built his wealth back up again, following the practices that he preaches.  He teaches not only his children, but millions of people how to manage their finances well.  He focuses on beating debt, saving, building wealth, and giving like you've never been able to give before, all the while building character and integrity.  FPU is a 13 week video and discussion based class designed by Dave Ramsey that is offered at many churches of all different denominations all over the country, workplaces,  military installations, non-profit organizations, and community centers.  The program teaches you how to achieve financial peace in your life with integrity and intensity by following seven baby steps:
1.)  $1000 in the bank for a starter emergency fund
2.)  Pay off all your debt, excluding the house (credit cards, student loans, car payments, and other loans) using the Debt Snowball
3.)  Build three to six months of savings in the bank set aside for emergencies only
4.)  Invest 15% of your household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
5.)  College funds for your kids
6.)  Pay off the mortgage to your home early
7.)  Build wealth and start giving like you never even dreamed you could

It is Christian focused, and it always stresses setting aside your money to give or tithe before you work the rest of your budget for the month.   My husband and I started the 90 day class a few weeks ago.  In the four sessions that we have been on board, I have experienced all sorts of emotions:  excitement, fear, anxiety, happiness, understanding, freak-outs, sadness, hope, glimpses of peace, and excitement again.  Let me back up a bit...

I hate numbers.  I hate dealing with math.  I hate thinking analytically.  So, naturally, I hate budgets, the process of setting a budget, and talking about savings, 401Ks, mutual funds, and IRAs.  I'm what Dave Ramsey calls the "free spirit" when it comes to money.  In certain areas of my life I like to be organized and detail-oriented, but when it comes to money, ha!  I just kind of spend by how I feel and hope that it all magically turns out for the best.  Terrible, I know.

Now, let me introduce you to my husband, who is what Dave Ramsey calls the "nerd".  He has not one masters degree, but two.  One is in computer engineering, and the other is an MBA.  He loved his financial classes, and for him thinking about money is (gulp) fun.  For all you free spirits out there, yes, I'm serious.  I did say fun.  He's a computer software engineer who has just recently moved into software architecture, so he naturally loves numbers, math, and thinking analytically...everything that almost makes me break out into hives just thinking about.  When we took the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality inventory in pre-marital counselling getting ready for marriage, we were exact opposites in everything.  I am an INFJ, and my husband is an ESTP.

Me:  Introverted
My husband:  Extroverted

Me:  Intuition (concerned with the underlying meaning of things)
My husband:  Sensing (concerned with what is real, present, and the facts)

Me:  Feeling (concerned about other people's values and emotions when I make decisions, make decisions with my heart, prefer everyone to feel at peace, etc.) 
My husband:  Thinking (looks at a problem logically and finds the underlying principle to be applied, thinks with his head, looks at things analytically)

Me:  Judging (concerned with being planned and organized, like decisions to be made, feels better using lists for tasks)--except for when it comes to money, hence the free spirit!
My husband:  Perceiving (spontaneous, open, flexible, laid back)--except for when it comes to money, hence the nerd!

Opposites attract, right?  So, as you can see, we obviously would approach the subject of finances very differently.  Men and women are also different when it comes to thinking about finances, too.  So throw that into the mix, and well, you can see why we chose to go to FPU.  My husband looooooooooooves making spread sheets about our finances that include just about every possible scenario in our lives that could happen financially.  I on the other hand, hate Excel, and still can't quite understand how to use it even though I have sort of learned it many times.  My husband recently even wrote his own computer program from scratch to determine a bunch of different ways we could pay off our debt with time lines for each of them.  The programs available on the FPU website were not up to snuff for him, so he created his own.  The budget spreadsheets and net worth/assets pages he prints off for me are so complicated that I just start to cry when we sit down to talk about money.  "Money"....I cry.  I don't know why.  It's like a gag reflex or something.  My crying is like my reaction to mayo or Miracle Whip; it simply just makes me sick.  So, as you can guess, when we sit down and try to talk about money or budgets, I get extremely confused and overwhelmed (but don't misunderstand:  I am very appreciative and proud of my husband for being able to think about money so well and to do all these things analytically for our family.  I would be a total mess without my nerd.)  When I become overwhelmed, it stresses out my husband, he gets frustrated, and in turn he feels like it's his fault that I'm crying, which it's not.  It's like we're speaking different languages.  He says "money", and I hear "Glsnmicklboqgtaypvs." I just let him, and WANT him to deal with the finances since he's good at it, and I am not.  The problem is that I feel out of the loop and very dependent when I do this.  If something were to happen to him, God forbid, I would be lost.  The second session of FPU was called "Nerds and Free Spirits Unite", and I'm thankful to say that this free spirit and nerd have united indeed!  In just a few short weeks, we have learned a valuable and priceless life lesson:  how to communicate with each other about setting the budget, sticking to it, and paying off our debt.  (Deeeeeee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eeeeeeeep breath in a good way.)

FPU is big on using cash for everything, which we're so not there yet.  We're on our way.  For now we are using a virtual envelope system and sinking funds in our financial planning.  The goal:  beat down our debt, save for our family's future, and save for expenses.  Sounds easy enough, but we've just never been able to talk about these things without frustration.  We have detailed spreadsheets for the last seven years about where exactly we have spent our money.  We've just never made a budget before spending the money.  We were doing fine until we went from a two-income family to one-income family.  That's when it all changed, and living without a set budget each month finally caught up to us.  Being a stay-at-home mom is undoubtedly the path that our family is supposed to be on, but adjusting financially has been difficult.  I think just knowing that we had to think and plan more about money made me dread talking about it, but now we talk all the time.  I feel like I have learned so much, and I can feel myself being much more open than I used to be.  Approaching our finances from a united, godly perspective has been life-changing.  We are learning to live with some discipline and self-control.  As Dave would say, we're living like no one else, so that we can LIVE like no one else later.  We're being disciplined so that eventually we can have the things that we want and pay for them up front without accruing more debt.  Thank God for Dave Ramsey!

Why Set Goals for Myself?

I am hopeful, excited, and to be quite honest with you, nervous, to begin traveling down this path towards becoming more like the noble woman in Proverbs 31.  For a long time, this nervousness has been holding me back.  In the beginning I didn't recognize what it was that was keeping me in fear. Finally I realized that it was nervousness (of failing, of not being able to do it on my own, of looking foolish, of disappointing others, myself, and God, the list really can go on forever...).  Yet at first, and extending into a very long time after that, I fully didn't understand why I was even nervous in the first place.  Recently, however, God has been giving me insights into my past and into my soul, and I'm now more aware of why this paralyzing nervousness exists.

Deciding how and in what areas of my life I needed to grow used to come easily to me.  In high school, both in academics and in athletics, I excelled in setting goals, following through with them, evaluating and re-evaluating myself, and setting new goals again.  I pushed myself, and I always aimed to better myself.  I never tried to be the best.  I just tried to do and to be my best.  My very wise and beautiful mother instilled that into me at a very young age, and she always stressed that she would be proud of me no matter what.  So, growing up in my small southeast Texas town, my motto was:  Be the best student that I can be.  Be the best volleyball and softball player that I can be.  Be the best friend that I can be.  Be the best leader that I can be, and so on, and so on.  This was what I did.  It was who I was, and I'm ashamed to say that I had a hard time identifying with people who struggled with motivation.  (Yuck, how arrogant!)  Looking back I now understand why it was so easy for me to stay motivated.  How could one surrounded by such an amazing and altruistic support system not be motivated?  This was one of those "ah ha" moments in my life.  My motivation did not come from myself at all.  Rather, it came from very specific people who God purposefully placed in my life as a teenager:  amazing teachers who believed I was capable of doing great things one day (God bless Mrs. Roberts, Mrs. McBride, and Mr. Perryman), tough, no-nonsense coaches who pushed me to my limits, loving parents who always encouraged me, loyal friends who supported me, and a selfless pastor who invested his precious and valuable time to teach and nurture me in the faith.

Unfortunately, during my college years, in which I was away from my support system and comfort zone, I seemed to lose sight of how to set and achieve goals effectively.  Don't get me wrong; I didn't go crazy or anything like that.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  It was in college that my heart burned even more for Christ.  I became extremely active at The Wesley Foundation Methodist Student Center at Texas A&M University.  I couldn't get enough of the worships, the deep bible studies, the small groups, the accountability, the crazy fun, the memorable trips, and the awesome friends.  I practically lived there.  I met my husband and some of my best friends there.  My parents even joked, and still do for that matter, that I majored in Wesley instead of in psychology.  Sure, my spiritual life was blooming.  I longed for authentic worship, I felt a part of a faith community, and I devoured the scriptures.  For the most part, I tried to let my spiritual growth affect my thoughts, my behavior, my attitude, and the words that came out of my mouth.  But I made a critical mistake:  I was not open to letting the spiritual growth permeate into other areas of my life, such as my seemingly ordinary and boring academic life.  Let me be clear.  When the Holy Spirit approached the flat, non-scenic, academic road of my life, I presented it with a hideous, bulky roadblock accompanied by a big, ugly, orange sign that read, "Detour".  During that time, instead of letting go so that my spiritual life could affect other areas of my life in positive and godly ways, it's as if I used my spiritual growth to replace the need to set and follow through with goals in other areas of my life.  I became unbalanced.  The result?  A very average, ho-hum college education.  I could have gotten so much more out of that experience.  I could have learned so much more.  To me my spiritual life and my academic life were two very separate things entirely.  Not only that, but I even thought, "Why should they have anything to do with the other?"  Behold, the idiot.

When you grow spiritually, it should not only be evident in your worship and in how you practice what Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline calls your spiritual disciplines (prayer, meditation, studying scripture, fasting, etc.) , but it should be evident in every aspect of your life--no matter how mundane, worldly, and seemingly unimportant you think it might be.  I just didn't get that.  When graduate school finally rolled around, and also with my teaching career, it seemed easy to set and achieve goals again.  In graduate school, I knew that my future depended on it.  With so many cooperative study groups and projects, I also knew that other students were depending on me and the work that I put into it.  With teaching, I knew that I was standing on holy ground.  Being a part of children's lives in a positive way, impacting their hopes and dreams, loving them enough to set boundaries for them and discipline them, and spurring them on to do great things and to believe in themselves--that was sacred.  And I knew it.  I knew the stakes were high, and I knew what it would take of me to be the best graduate student and elementary school teacher that I could possibly be.  So I put in the time to make sure that I excelled.  I finally got it.  My professional goals and how I achieved them were closely intertwined with my journey of faith.  God was calling me to be in seminary, and God was calling me into the first grade classroom.  Therefore, the goals, how ever practical they may have been, held deep, significant, and spiritual meaning.

Now, I've come to a new chapter in my life--a chapter that began when my son was eleven months old.  I am now a stay-at-home mom.  More than anything in my life, I felt this calling the deepest.  Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, I have realized that I have been growing more spiritually again, which excites me.   When I first began to stay at home full time, I knew that calling involved spending more quality time with my son and husband, making them more of a priority, focusing on our family time together, nurturing my son spiritually, playing with him, having silly fun together, and teaching him social skills, his letters and numbers, and all sorts of other things --all the easy and fun things about being a stay-at-home mom.  That part of the calling was a no brainer.  Here's the sad part.  I never realized until recently that if being a stay-at-home mom is truly a calling from God for me, then I should embrace ALL aspects of being a stay-at-home mom as a calling--even the mundane, worldly, seemingly unimportant tasks that go along with being a stay-at-home mom that are not that fun at all.  Even those things are part of this calling.  Who am I to pick and choose what part of my calling to follow?  When I first realized this,  my prayers and struggles with God looked a little something like this, "Grocery shopping and cooking?  Really?  That has something to do with spiritual things?  All sitting down at the table to eat together as a family?  And, God, did you say eat without the t.v. on?  Maybe I'm hearing you wrong.  Surely, you don't care how hard I work to get my child to eat vegetables willingly?  Seriously, God?  This is intertwined into my relationship with you?  Getting our family on a budget, spending money wisely, and getting out of debt?  That is a part of my spiritual walk with you, Lord?  And come on.  Laundry?  Give me a break.  You've got to be kidding."  Once I finished throwing my temper tantrum, I accepted that the reality of the situation is that being a stay-at-home mom is my full-time job, my calling, and it's time to embrace all of it--not just the parts that I pick and choose.  My behavior would be like the Israelites choosing to skip the forty years of wandering in the desert.  No thank you, God.  Just please fast forward me straight to the promised land, the good stuff.  Thanks.  Now, saying that I need to view the every day, ordinary tasks of running a home as part of this calling is not to say that my husband doesn't cook, clean, spend time with our son, change diapers, do laundry, etc.  In our marriage we are equal partners.  But, lately, I have not been carrying my load when it comes to these ordinary tasks.  And when I do, I am not doing it out of a joyful heart and with a heart of a servant carrying out her divine calling.

So, what are my goals for 2011?  How do I plan on beginning on the path towards becoming like the godly wife and mother that Proverbs 31 speaks so highly of?

• Plan meals for one entire week at a time and grocery shop once a week for these meals.
• Cook at least 4-5 meals at home for my family per week.
• Get my son to try everything that I cook for a meal at least once, and get him to fully eat at least one thing that I cook each meal (It can be a main dish or a side, and it is acceptable to supplement with other food he likes.)
• Get my son to eat a variety and all of his vegetables at meal times.
• Have my son, my husband, and I all eating dinner at the same time, sitting down all together as a family at the table with the t.v off and no cell phones.  (Music is okay.)
• Sit down at the table with my son when he is eating breakfast and lunch, even if I am not eating.  I won't simply be in the kitchen doing other stuff while he is eating.
• Load and run the dishwasher at night before bed.
• Designate one day a week to doing multiple loads of laundry.
•  Try the local early childhood PTA. (This will be an outlet for me to socialize and learn from other stay-at-home moms and guest speakers as well as an opportunity for my son to have structured play time and activities with other children.)
• Be more committed to attending the weekly women's bible study at my church on Wednesdays.  (Make it to at least 24 sessions this year.  The bible study does not meet during the summer.)
• Try the MOM'S group at church that meets bi-monthly. (This will be another great outlet for me to fellowship with other moms, but in a Christian setting where we can learn from one another, encourage one another, grow spiritually with one another, and keep one another accountable.)
• Take part in at least one other various bible study at my church throughout the year (Crossing Point mini bible studies every three months, lent bible studies, advent bible studies, etc.)
• Teach my son his letter sounds and numbers in a more organized way.
• Join the weekly Christ-focused preschool group that my friends started.
• Nurture my son spiritually and creatively (through having him attend Sunday School and church, through taking part in the weekly Christ-focused preschool group together, and through nightly prayer time).
• Schedule at least one play date a week outside other weekly activities in which being with other children is a given.
• Set a reasonable family budget, stick to it, and use Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace concepts to learn how to spend money wisely so that we can begin to get our family out of some debt.

The Proverbs 31 Project runs much deeper than surface goals for me.  This, above all, will be a spiritual journey.  Yes, I have goals that are very practical concerning my development in my role as a mother and a wife.  Yes, I have goals concerning my household and my family's well-being as a whole.  And yes, I have goals concerning the educational, social, and physical development of my two year old son.  But all of these goals and the accomplishment of these goals spawn from a deeper yearning:  to personally grow spiritually as I carry out my calling to be a stay-at-home mom and to help my son, in turn, grow spiritually.  These are not things that I can "accomplish" or that I can do on my own.  God is the One who is the ultimate transformer.  It will not be me doing the work, but God doing the work through me.   So here I am, Lord, waiting to be transformed.