Coming up for air. Debt is suffocating.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a time when I found myself wrought with worry.  It was more common that I found myself awake at night than asleep.  The burden of our debt and the lack of income we had was eating away at me, I felt hopeless.  I had NO IDEA how we would be able to dig out from under the mountain we created.   The future looked bleak and many of the dreams we had as newlyweds had begun to fade.  That was about 5 years ago, and as much as I hate to say it we STILL have some of that debt lingering around.  However the difference now is that we have HOPE and we have a plan.

As permanent as your situation may feel I want to encourage you that nothing is forever.   So many things in our lives have changed over the past 5 years that I’ve begun to realize nothing is impossible and very little is forever.  From the day we got married, Mr. Frugal and I had always dreamed of living outside of CA.  At the time though much of our situation looked to say that CA was where we’d call home for a very long time.  Here we are in Oregon today.  For 1o years my husband worked for his family’s business, while we were thankful for the opportunity it wasn’t a career that he loved.  We dreamed of owning our own business and even though not a single bit of The Frugal Find came because of anything we had planned, we’re so very thankful that the Lord blessed us and allows us to  do what we do today.  It’s a ministry that we’re very passionate about.

Today we find ourselves about 18 months away from being DEBT FREE!  We would have been out of debt a lot sooner, had we been insured when we moved to Oregon.  Remember when Mr. Frugal ended up in the hospital the weekend we arrived in Oregon?  Yep we were uninsured.  Our kid’s were covered, but in CA we simply couldn’t afford it.  In hindsight the 20K bill was a whole lot less affordable then insurance would have been at the time, but alas we feel that the hospital bill really helped kick us into high GET OUT OF DEBT gear.  So we’re awkwardly thankful for it.

All of this to say, we’ve been there.  We’re coming out on the other side of the dark tunnel and there is hope.  We’re looking to buy a house in a town we love, running a business that we never would have dreamed of, and we’re all healthy (and insured!)

I’m praying for you today.   I know what you’re going through.  I know the desperation you feel.  Please know that as the song above says, even in the desert – our God is the God who provides and He is refining you. In every season, He is still God and we have a reason to sing.