I am laying in bed this Sunday afternoon resting and watching NBC’s Dateline special on “Inside the Financial Fiasco.” The one I am watching is part 2 of a 3 part series. The 3rd part of the series is playing tonight at 7pm EST.  It’s disturbing to watch and see all  the scare tactics made to get people to pay their debt, which debt collectors get sued over. It makes me very thankful that Tim and I are out of debt and don’t have to worry about what these people on tv are dealing with.

Tomorrow Tim and I are speaking at a Total Money Makeover class that is being lead by the man in our church that introduced us to Dave Ramsey’s plan to become debt free. We’ve been told that there are about 400 people meeting at this class, which totally makes me nervous, but with watching Dateline I am just getting frustrated and can’t wait to tell people that if they take what they are learning from the Total Money Makeover seriously, it works. It takes discipline, but it is totally worth it to not be slave to the lender. (Proverbs 22:7) And it is possible to be debt free, we’re a living example of that! I love walking to my car in a parking lot because I admire my debt free sticker on my back window. It makes me proud to see that and know that all our hard work was totally worth it!

Tim and I are planning on being at the entire class tomorrow, and I really hope our story touches some people and that we’re able to talk to others tomorrow night and be an encouragement. These stories on dateline of people living okay until loosing a job because of the economy and then depending on credit cards to pay for groceries and essentials is just sad. Tim and I are currently building up a 6 month emergency fund so we don’t get caught up in that trap. We don’t have any credit cards and it is so comforting that when we have a medical bill or car problem that surprises us, we have the money to pay for it. We might have to cut eating out or put aside less for gifts for people that month, but we’re able to get by, and so far without having to dip into our emergency fund.

I want to encourage everyone to attend a Town Hall for Hope on April 23rd. You can go to the website and find somewhere locally hosting the live broadcast of Dave Ramsey speaking about the economy and lots more. And on top of that you can surround yourself by others in your community and be a support for each other. I don’t understand why people wont talk about money. I hear from so many people that it is a personal issue, but if it stays personal who does it help? Who do you learn from and who do you teach if you don’t share about your financial situations? There have been lots of people in our church who have gone through the class, Total Money Makeover. Some people go full speed through the process, some are slow at making progress, and some listen to the advice and that’s it, no actions are taken. You can guess how each of those situations end up. The huge topic on the news these days is how the economy is hurting greatly, and that’s not going to change until people get an understanding of money and realize that debt is dumb. Stop using credit cards and don’t buy something unless you have the money ahead of time to purchase it. If you don’t have the money to go out and get Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey right away, then start listening to his podcasts. You’ll learn a lot from other’s stories and what advice Dave Ramsey gives them.

This past week has been a whirl wind of baby fever. Last weekend we bought the bedding set for the nursery that I fell in love with in the beginning. I found it online, and we saw it in person for the first time and snatched it while it was 25% off. Tim and I adjusted our registry at Babies R Us and I finally went to the Target in our town and completed our Target Baby Registry. I didn’t register for any clothes, because we don’t know if we’re having a boy or girl, and I figure people will be buying and giving us baby clothes anyways, whether I register for clothes or not.

On top of buying our crib bedding I am so excited to have found a boy outfit and a girl outfit to bring Baby Schmoyer home in. The more I look at them the more excited I get about getting to see Baby Schmoyer in August.

I have also been busy this month with working on a quilt for either a baby boy or baby girl. I haven’t finished them, but I have the face on them completed.

And my last project that I finished was reupholstering the free glider we were given. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s good enough, especially for being my first time to try to reupholster anything.

I will put more detailed pictures of everything on facebook, so you can see more detail on the outfits, quilts and the stains on the blue fabric that was on the glider before. I’m not sure what my next project will be, maybe completing the baby quilts. And I need to be content now and not let myself buy anything else for Baby Schmoyer at this point. I’m glad we’re on a budget so I can’t just go out and get everything, or feel like I can. I’m gonna have to start being patient and just enjoy what we have so far.

A side not before I start my post… My brother-in-law scanned our ultrasound pictures of Baby Schmoyer for me over the weekend. I hope you enjoy looking at our baby’s pictures, if you click on them they’ll get bigger. Thanks David!

I know I have said this many times, but I am so thankful that God has brought Tim and I to the church we are at now. Whenever I talk to people around town about our church the number one description I always use to describe our church is “healthy.” I love all the support that Tim and I get and we have really developed great relationships with the people God has surrounded us by. When I think about us getting to bring our first child into this world I am so grateful to be at Alex Covenant and be able to have them be a part of this huge moment in our life.

Living in the small town where we get to run into people from church almost everywhere we go is starting to grow on me too. It’s fun to stop and talk to people when I’m out running errands. I was skeptical of that at first moving from a huge city and liking that we could go somewhere and do what we needed and get home, but it just brightens up my day to see people around town.

Today God totally showed me how blessed I am to have our church family here. And I really do feel like people from church are a part of my family. And I love that because family means so much to me, and with us not living near our extended families (for the most part) and not seeing family for months at a time it helps to have our spiritual family, who I have really come to love.

I hope God has plans to keep Tim and I in Alexandria for a while now. I have always wanted to live in one place for at least over 5 years and break my record so far. Although I’m not fond of the cold and snow anymore, which only took 2 years to get tired of, our church family God has given us, totally makes up for it.

Earlier today I was catching up on the few blogs I follow. The one that really caught my eye is a fellow youth pastor’s wife that I got to meet earlier this month in Ohio at the National Youth Ministry Conference. Mrs. H wrote a post linking to some incredible videos of what pastor’s wives go through. If you’re not a PW they might not be very interesting to you, but would be a good understanding of what many women go through. I couldn’t stop watching being able to relate to some of what women said and praying that other things that were said will never be a trial for me. I am so blessed to be married to Tim, to have the family that I grew up in and to be at a church that is supportive and understanding. Yes there are trials, but God is good and nothing too hard has come up at our current location.

I don’t know when I knew for sure, but I felt called by God to be a pastor’s wife. And when I felt that calling I prayed that I could be a youth pastor’s wife instead of a senior pastor’s wife. I knew that being a pastor’s wife would not be easy, but felt like if someone had to do it, I would be a good candidate.

All my life I saw my Mom support my Dad as he lead our church (the many we were a part of) and watched how she interacted with everyone, handling different situations with such strength and compassion. I always knew my Mom was a strong woman who had to lean on Christ through everything, and I am so proud to have her for my Mom.

Now that I am married to Tim, the best youth pastor ever, I am so glad to have women in my life who have gone through life as a pastor’s wife. My Grandmother on my Dad’s side has been a constant encouragement to me as she shares her experience of being a pastor’s wife with me and helps me out when I need advice on how to handle different situations. I am so blessed to have both of my grandmothers to look at and see how they have handled situations in the church while being the number one woman upholding their husbands as they lead the church.

So if you haven’t caught on, I am a youth pastor’s wife, my Mom is a pastor’s wife, and both of my grandmothers are pastor’s wives. And not to mention, my mother-in-law is a pastor’s wife. It’s not always easy, but I am glad that God has thought enough of me to put me up to the challenge and bless me with the life I have.

We finally made it to above freezing! The news doesn’t cover our town specifically, but for the Minneapolis area (about 2 hours southeast of us) they usually stay 5-10 degrees warmer and they hi 50 degrees for the first time since the first week in November. We have yet to hit 50, and I’m guessing we weren’t in the 50s when November started. It will be a fabulous day when we get that warm!

I haven’t gotten any work this week being the first week back after Spring Break. On Monday I had a chance come up, but I went to bed too late, got the notice at 6:30 for a job that I would’ve had to leave the house by 7 to make, and do that all on only 6 hours of sleep. So instead of working for money, I’ve been working for Baby. I am in the process of making 2 baby quilts, one for a boy, one for a girl.

I was really struggling earlier this week with trying to decide if Tim and I are going to find out the sex of our baby when we go in for the next check-up this Monday, but with making both of these baby quilts I think I am doing better at going back to what we’ve told everyone already, and keeping Baby Schmoyer a surprise. I do keep on thinking that I’ll feel like I can bond more with Baby Schmoyer knowing if the baby is a boy or a girl, and getting to choose a name for Baby and get to buy some outfits for Baby before he/she comes so I don’t have to do any shopping the week or two after Baby is here. I’d also like to quit calling Baby Schmoyer an “it” because I just forget sometimes to say he or she when talking about Baby. We told the doctor last month that we are wanting to keep Baby’s sex a surprise and he said, “Well if you want to do that, just don’t look very closely at the ultrasound.” My first thought was, “How in the world do you expect me to do that! My eyes will more than likely be glued to that screen wanting to see every part of this Baby growing and moving around inside of me.”

I wasn’t planning on quilting this week until struggling with the decision to find out if Baby is a boy or a girl, and to keep me occupied while I wait to get fabric for another project. We got a really nice glider from friends for free, but it needs to be reupholstered. I’ve never done it before, but figure God will help me with my creativity and figuring out how to best do this. I stripped the glider’s cushions at the beginning of the week and measured to see how much fabric I need, but have had to hold off on buying the fabric until we did our budget for the month (which we got to last night), and for me to find the right kind of fabric for the glider. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I can get Tim to go with me to JoAnn so he can help me make the final decision on what to buy, and I have a coupon good for this week!

I noticed I hadn’t blogged in almost a week after being really good at blogging, so I figured it was time again, plus I needed a break from quilting. I can’t let myself get in a hurry to finish the quilts ’cause I want to make sure I do a really good job. It’s been a good bonding time for me too, to make a gift for our baby.

I am totally in the nesting phase this week. I knew exactly when it hit and yesterday I spent all day cleaning the house, which I never do. I’m trying to keep myself busy so I don’t start moving things out of our office, which will soon be the nursery. I keep on saying we wont make it into the nursery until the summer, and I need to hold to it. If we moved the office out right now anyways all we would have is an empty room that I would probably just go sit in the middle of it and dream of getting everything we need for Baby Schmoyer.

Which that brings out the anxious part of my nesting. . . We got a “surprise/joke” of a baby shower from our friends before we even knew we were pregnant since we got out of debt and were moving on to our next baby step with Dave Ramsey, they thought it’d be funny to celebrate that baby step with a few baby items. I check our baby registries almost every day just to look at what all we’ll hopefully be getting, but no one has even spoken about doing a baby shower for Baby Schmoyer. I know we still have 5 months or 22 weeks, or 152 days, which ever way you want to look at it, but it makes me nervous that we’re trying to save up our emergency fund and then on top of that we’ll have to pay medical bills when Baby gets here and what ever else Baby Schmoyer will need that we forget, or find out we need later, ’cause I have no clue what all exactly we need to take care of a baby.

I’m glad that cleaning the house is keeping me occupied for now. I actually enjoyed going through everything in our huge main floor closet. It was nice to throw stuff away, and put some stuff up on freecycle.org. Someone today is already picking up 2 old computers that we don’t need and a bag of Chinese art prints. I love giving stuff away that we don’t need, and am probably going to be going through more stuff today and see what else I can put up on freecycle.org. If you want to see what all I registered for you can go to BabiesRUS and Target online to see what few and fun stuff we have on there. I’m really eager for all the snow to leave so people will start having garage sales so I can go hunting and see what I can find. Hopefully people will start putting baby stuff up on freecycle.org that I can get. There was a lot of stuff posted before I got pregnant and I didn’t want to take any of it not knowing how long it would take us to get prego.

I am spending the evening cleaning out our wrap-around closet under the stairs. I didn’t realize how much stuff we moved here with that I could’ve just thrown away, so now our garbage is full. In the process I was going through spiral notebooks clearing out sheets I don’t need, and came across one of my writings/prayers from college. I figured I’d share it ’cause this was a huge turning point in my life and about 3 months before Tim and I started dating, which wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t end up transferring schools. Good thing I followed God’s plan for me instead of my own, and transferred schools!

Here’s what I wrote:

So who would’ve thought that I might be transferring colleges. I know God sent me away to school for a purpose so I would grow and learn to be on my own. But lately, another thing came to my mind, maybe God wanted me to go away so I wouldn’t be naive anymore and I wouldn’t be blind to the world. I had always heard of things of the world, but never saw or experienced anything, so I was always very close minded. My temptations have gotten stronger, but I believe my faith is getting stronger lately. I’ve been able to notice my temptations and sometimes fight them. Do I need to leave to get away from it though? Am I not strong enough to stay here? Do I need to go back home so I can gain my strength back? I have everything in my life planned out until I graduate if I stay here at McMurry. But God knocked me aside the head last night and made me realize just that, “I” have everything in my life planned out until I graduate.

If I go back home, what will I be doing? What’s in store for me? I don’t know if 2 weeks is long enough for me to hear God and know exactly what he wants for me. Maybe I’ll have to wait until this summer and see how things go and what happens and then do what God wants of me. Who knows, maybe God is using this as a scare that I need to watch myself, or else He’ll have to do something drastic. I mean, everything is planned otu perfect for the next year, come back a week early and do soccer, play soccer & sub during season for a job, when soccer season is over I’ll get an actual job on top of subbing. Then I’ll stay here for my job, maybe even take summer classes next summer. I mean, seriously, what would I do if I go home? FUMC LP is looking for a youth director & youg life director, but I’m only 20, how would I possibly do it? Maybe volunteer for a year & if things go well, when I’m 21 maybe I can be the actual thing? Or is there someone else for the job & it’s just not the right time.

God, I’m scared to talk to you about this because I’m scared of what you have planned for me. I love you and you know I do, I just feel safe & secure here in Abilene even though I’m tired of all the drama and trash that goes down. If I leave here I have no clue what to expect, absolutely nothing will be in my hands. But now that I write this, maybe that’s what you are trying to teach me, that “I” don’t have control of my life, YOU do, & I need to let you take the wheel while I stand aside and let you use me. Lord I want to be your servant, do with me what you will. Give me the strength to step down, the courage to let everything go and the mind to let my heart be in control. Who knows, maybe I’ll grow so much this summer I’ll be able to come back and be a brighter light to this campus than ever before. But also again, you always have people step out of their comfort zones so that you may use them in miraculous ways.

God, I have so much to learn and so much room to grow. Stretch me, mold me, mend me, use me. Lord, change my plans I have for the rest of college, throw me a curve ball. My life is in your hands. Where I will be should be the least of my worries, WHAT I will be is what I need to focus on with you leading me. I love you God, I know you have the best plans for my life. I pray I will never stray so far that I will forget that. Always hold me near and dear and I will do the same. Blind me of my plans and let me focus on yours. Thank you so much for giving me Sarah to help me through this time, God that is one of the biggest blessings you have ever given me. Thank you so much, I love you. Amen.

I absolutely loved this past weekend getting to network with other youth workers. I got to meet 2 amazing women who we keep up with each other through our blogs and some amazing men that Tim has connections with through his blog. There were tons of other people we got to connect with and it was totally natural. I realized afterwards that I was totally myself and I didn’t hold back anything.

There are way too many times where I close myself off and not let my true personality come out. I do this because I am afraid of what people will think of me and that I would scare someone off. What I realized this past weekend though, is when I let myself be who I truly am I like myself a lot more and have way more fun. I know what situations I don’t let myself be myself, and it usually surprises me when I do let go and be myself. There are different groups around the church that I hold back, and I also hold back around Tim’s side of the family. I wish I didn’t, and I don’t know how to kick myself out of my shell I close myself into, but I want to learn how. I shared the other week in our Sr. High Monday night C-Group about this and added, “I know I can be a really fun person!” And this weekend proved it to me. Not once did I question how people would see me, and I got the biggest compliment which is what made me realize that I was being myself all weekend long. Now how do I do this all life long?

With my mind whirling of what kind of impact can I make in our church now that I am back and had amazing training I already contacted a few Moms of teens in the church and got an affirmation from God through one of the Moms that my heart is really in this, and with God’s help amazing things will happen. I think a big part of letting God work through me is to be open and let him work through me, the true me, not the me that holds back because of fear of what others think of me. I know God is totally in love with me and he loves the way he made me. I need to feed off of God’s love for me and embrace the way he made me so others can see Christ’s love through me.

After this weekend I am realizing God’s love for me again and how he loves the way he made me. In a way I am starting a new journey with looking only to God for my reassurement and not earthly reassurement. God pretty much knocked me aside the head to remind me that he made me for a purpose and I can’t hold it in anymore. And I am glad he used the people I met this past weekend to help me realize that.

My head has just been spinning and overwhelmed with all sorts of ideas of how to implement what I learned from this weekend into our church. On Sunday I was so tired and restless that I barely had any kind of attention span, so I ended up ducking out of Partnering with Parents early at both the morning and afternoon sessions after getting the papers and info to fill in blanks. I got a lot out of the first 2 sessions and keep going back to those where my interest really got going.

God also spoke to me a lot personally throughout the weekend which I really needed. Sunday morning when I woke up I was thinking, “I have been carrying my Bible around with me all weekend and haven’t used it once!” Kind of blaming it on the conference, and then God kinda knocked me aside the head reminding me that it was my own responsibility to take the time to spend with him. I got to talk to Debb Bresina from Dare2Share about it some too. It’s awesome when God reaffirms you through other people, which happened all weekend long. At the last session of my deeper learning track I ducked out half way through and spent some time in the Word. After spending some time I really wanted to go listen to Greg Stier speak, even though I  knew he’d be running on a lack of sleep, it’s still really encouraging to listen to him especially since my husband, Tim has implemented the Deep & Wide strategy into our own youth group.

For lunch on Sunday I got to visit the Brown Bag session on Bridging the Gap. They talked about how do we better bring up the students from children’s ministry into the youth ministry. I feel like our church is really hurting in this area with our 6th graders. On Sunday mornings the 6th grade is under the youth ministry’s possession only in the way that Tim is responsible to find the teachers for Sunday morning. And then on Wednesday night 6th grade is under the childrens ministry’s possession because AWANA goes up through 6th grade. Last Fall Tim and I invited parents to come to our house for a dinner and discussion to learn and talk about the youth ministry. We had a lot of newer parents there whose oldest just started in the youth ministry, and they gave great insight into the fact that we need to inform the parents and students of what is going on during the summer because there was a break in communication with some students knowing they could start doing youth activities the summer before 7th grade and some didn’t.

I’ll be writing more of my thoughts on Partnering with Parents and Bridging the Gap later. I have so many thing running around my head and so many people I want to talk to about this weekend. I think I’ll try to process it all completely before I jump the gun with all this enthusiasm I have in me right  now.