Faithfulness

I lead a very blessed life. Much of this can be attributed to the faithfulness of my parents. They gave up so much in order for us to live a good life. To clarify a bit, we were not spoiled. We shopped at Ross (do you love it, I love it!), drove decently crappy cars, but lived in a nice house and attended private Christian schools for the entirety of our elementary years. I used to ask why we drove a Pontiac 6000 named "Cracker Haven," when our neighbors drove slick new purple Dodge Caravans. My mother would always respond that they made sacrifices by sending us to private schools and providing us with a Christian education. I'm very grateful for this. While I didn't always have a blissful experience at my Christian school, I had fantastic teachers, a great education, and made some wonderful friends that I am still close with to this day.

My parents tithed faithfully and attempted to pass this down to us. When I was five or six and earning an allowance of $2 a week, I remember them encouraging us to deposit 20 cents of this into a little plastic white church bank for tithe. While I was never able to successfully turn this into a habit as a child, I have somehow been able to pick up this as an adult.

When I look back at the life my parents provided for us, I see God's blessings everywhere I turn. My dad is a very intelligent individual and he never went to college. He has spent years and years educating himself to become the person he is today, and he's very successful. My parents sent all four of us to college, and paid for 90% of it. I have minimal student loans because I went to private school, but my sisters don't have to worry about them. They set us up for success by being faithful stewards of God, and for this I am very grateful. This is a large part of the reason why I have a job that I love.

 I look around at my life today, and I can't deny that I have been blessed because of faithfulness. Sometimes being faithful with my money is a challenge. I have a husband who isn't always fully convinced that the 10% we give to the church is the best thing to do. But every time he doubts and I still write out the check, we have received something unexpected that far exceeds the amount we have given. This isn't always financial, but to me, God's blessings are so easy to spot. People aren't just "this lucky." If I ever need convincing that God exists, I simply look around.