Booyah December 20, 2008

A celebration is in order today.  Today we made our last payment to Sallie Mae for the remaining balance of Trevor’s undergrad loan.  Only two loans to pay-yay!  Here is the updated list of our loans and those we have paid off.  We still have $22,000 of student loans from Trinity but our car balance is down to $8,300. 

Trevor has been working so hard lately and I know it is a true encouragement for him to see the progess we have made in repaying our loans.  We certainly have learned our lesson about borrowing money.  We are so thankful to God for giving Trevor two jobs that are helping us climb our way out of debt as quickly as possible.  We’ll see if Trevor can keep up both jobs once we have the baby, but we know even if that is too much God’s will is for us to get out of debt as quickly as possible and he will help us.  Praise God for paying off Trevor’s remaining debt from NIU.

Elizabeth NIU- $16,000      6/08

TEDS (directly from Trinity)- $1000   10/08

Trevor NIU-$5,000  12/10/08

Car-$12,000

TEDS (IDAPP)-$22,000

3rd Trimester December 18, 2008

I’m in the my third trimester today!  The time has gone by much more quickly than I have anticipated, for that I am truly thankful.  I went to the doctor today and had my glucose test done.  I found out our baby is head down-yay and that we are looking good.  My scheduled c-section, in case I do not go into labor on my own, (it is not usually practice to induce a VBAC because it increases the risk of uterine rupture) will be in early April, so I can wait until I am 42 weeks pregnant.

I was a little disapointed because my Dr. is pregnant and due on March 14th, 5 days before my own due date of March 19th.  We really like our OB/GYN but hope that I will just go early so she can still deliever baby boy Holloway #2.

This pregnancy has been much different from my first.  The main difference is that I am so busy and involved with Ethan my focus is not often on his little brother inside me until Ethan is in bed.  My thoughts and attention are so much on my devotion and service to Ethan (and Trevor of course) that I don’t have the same time I did to focus on myself.  I don’t know that I was necessarily selfish when I was pregnant with Ethan, but I will say I did enjoy the attention.  This time I am fully content with all the attention still on Ethan and the soon to be new baby. 

I think I have also grown a lot in my role as wife besides mother during this pregnancy.  I have seen some extraordinary wives and mothers at my church who are great role models. I see all they do for thief husbands and children that I just hope they grew into those roles and that it is not just who they are (that thought gives me hope in becoming the wife and mother God wants me to be).  Although I loved the attention Trevor doted me with while Ethan was in utero, I am so glad that I have time to really be the helper he needs me to be right now while he is working so hard for us. 

I am also making sure to enjoy these special days when it is just me and Ethan.  I am so looking forward to seeing Ethan as a big brother, but right now I am trying to enjoy each moment with him because I know things will never be the same once I have this child.  I love him so much, it is unbelievable and it is hard to believe soon I will two people this much (Of course I love Trevor the most, sorry Ethan and baby, that’s how God designed it.)!

Rewards and Faith December 8, 2008

So as I said before I wanted to spend some time looking at Scripture that has to do with prayer in hopes that God’s Word would encourage me in my quest to pray faith sized requests.  Although I looked up quite a few passages today I wanted to share and expound on two verses that got me thinking.

This passage comes from Matthew and is about the Pharisees who pray in the street .  Although the whole passage relates to prayer this particular verse intrigued me. 

Matthew 6:6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.  And your Father who sees you in secret will reward you.

There are several things that strike me.  First, God wants us to pray to him.  The Maker of the universe WANTS to talk with ME.  Incredible to think about, the grace of God abounds in my life so much more than I even realize or give thought to.  Next, God rewardsus for praying!   Prayer is a Christian discipline, (activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill as per dictionary.com) it is something I should have a desire to do out of my love for God.  So, what is so amazing is that God rewards us for doing something that we should want to do, something that improves our Christian character, faith, and walk with God.  Now who knows what the reward is, it could be the improvement of my Christian character, faith, and walk with God, or it could be a reward stored for me in heaven or even that God would answer my prayer in the way I wanted.  Either way, amazing.

The second verse I wanted to reflect on is Matthew 21:22 And whatever you ask for in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith. 

This verse, I feel, speaks directly to the idea of faith sized requests. This is exactly what I need from God’s Word to encourage me to grow in my faith.  The question still remains, how do I get this faith?

Faith Sized Requests December 5, 2008

A faith sized request is something that that you pray for that you truly believe God can do.  Now, at first, that seems a bit silly, I mean, we all know God is God and he can do ANYTHING.  However, I have found that some of my requests are bigger than my faith, meaning, I may believe God will do something in my head, but my heart just doesn’t believe.  I have been convicted to stop praying for those things for which I do not truly believe God can do. 

I have also been trying to record some of the things I do request and the way God answers them in order to build my faith and be able to ask for anything with confidence.  Now, I do realize, just because I ask God for something does not mean he will answer the prayer the way I hope for.  Also, I don’t want to imply that my time in prayer is one big ‘to-do’ list for God, rather I want to focus on this aspect of my prayer life.

There is one request that I have that I want to have the faith to ask God, but as of yet, I have not gotten there.  Trevor has already asked that God would get us out of our debt by next Christmas.  Now in my head, I know God can do anything, but my heart just doesn’t believe because I know I cannot ask this of God with a clean conscience. 

I have been working on asking some smaller faith sized requests to build my faith (these particular requests all deal with our finances since that is what I am once again trying to muster up the faith to ask God for).  A few months back I asked God to provide a way for us to not have to pay an outstanding medical bill for Ethan’s vaccinations.  After I talked with the office manager, the account was cleared to zero, saving us about $300!  I have also asked that God would provide a way for us to put even more towards our debt than budgeted.  Recently, gas prices have dropped and we have had a surplus in that area of our budget to apply towards our loans.  Most recently I had wanted to have Trevor’s NIU loan paid off by January, but I have the faith and have asked God that we be able to pay off that loan this month.  God is providing extra funds for us to use towards our debt by allowing Trevor to get overtime hours at his job at a pay rate of time and a half (which, when all is said and done should be just about enough to pay off the loan this month!).  These answers to prayer along with others are slowly building my faith and I hope to soon be able to ask God the same request that Trevor has shared with  me, that we would be debt free by Christmas 2009.  There are so many ways God could do this, each one simple for him.  I can’t wait until I have the faith to ask.

Besides recording the answers to prayers it has been helpful to go to the Bible and see exactly what God says about our prayers.  I will reflect on that in a bit.

Meanwhile, to read the article that inspired the post see http://www.bulletininserts.org/faithsized.html

The Dangers of Debt Consolidation December 2, 2008

Let me start by saying that I consolidated my student loans from NIU and we are now consolidating our outstanding loans from TEDS ($22.000).  Our purpose in this is so that we can pay off our car as quickly as possible by only having to make minimum payments on this loan.  Once we pay for our car we will then put all our available money toward our debt. 

We got our letter in the mail today about our debt consolidation, thus the reason for this post.  Our loans currently have a 4.21% and 6.80% interest rate (each semester we took a loan has a different rate).  When we consolidate the new interest rate will be 5.6%.  I think that is a fair enough trade off. 

Here comes the dangerous part of debt consolidation.  If we were to make only the minimum payments each month it would take 20 years, or only 240 payments!  On top of having debt for 20 years on a degree that took two years to get we would have a final cost after interest of $36,378.69.   In other words, we would pay an additional $14,000 or so for our loan.