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| Happy go lucky Nick |
Two extremes RIGHT!? Nick definitely calms me down and makes me see things in another perspective. I hope I do the same for him, because worrying just a little bit is ok or necessary. I would have to say our biggest struggle in our marriage has been our finances. Trust me when I say we are definitely a budget type of family. I am OCD (just ask my hubby) when it comes to doing our finances, having an excel sheet going, sticking to a budget. I pay all bills and make sure things are on track.
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| Nick, Connor and April |
Here is our story.....when Nick and I were dating I was in college and Nick was taking a few courses here and there at the community college. I did not think he was taking it seriously and we argued many times about him figuring out what kind of degree he would want and possibly going to a State college. I was raised to graduate highschool and go immediately to college. Nick was not so we had two different views on this topic which led to many arguments. Nick finally decided that he wanted to become a Kinesiology Teacher. He loved kids and he loved anything to do with sports and fitness. We got him connected to an amazing counselor who helped him get his associates completed and he applied to UH and SHSU. A month after we had been married he started taking his courses at SHSU. Big changes for Nick and I. Obviously he was doing more studying but also working full-time. Getting him through school, me working on my masters degree and us both working full-time was a big load for us in our first year of marriage. We started making goals for our family because things started getting on track. Nick had some struggles with SHSU on getting courses accounted for and they screwed up his graduation so he was held back a semester for graduation. When December 2009 came, Nick graduated- yay! Now it was time for him to get a teaching job. We had just bought our first house the summer before he graduated and we had big plans on remodeling our home and making it just what we wanted. God sure had another plan for us! And this is where our struggle really began!
The economy just went bad and teachers were getting fired/let go instead of hired. All our dreams of Nick starting work right away went down the drain. Money got really tight because Nick was having to take up odd jobs just to bring money home. At this time it was us and our 1 yr old baby. There were many times we did not know when we could buy groceries. Of course we always paid our bills - maybe not on time (depending on when our pay checks came in), but after our bills it did not leave us much left to buy groceries and baby things. There was definitely no extra money for clothes or emergencies. Our savings was gone from paying medical bills off. During the next almost 2 years we struggled with patience and we definitely built on our relationship with God. We were so stressed and just confused on why this was happening to us. In the end we had to trust in God and I think God knew that we needed to build our relationship with him and make it stronger. I think God knew we needed to learn to trust in him and his plans for us and stop thinking that our plan was the best. It is funny how God works and how he test us. God provided for us when we had no idea how we would do it. Obviously he had something bigger and better for us and that in the end wasn't what we thought it would be, but hey thats the beauty of it and we roll with the punches. Finances is one thing that can really destroy a marriage and again it goes back to keeping an open communication with your spouse and trusting in the Lord. It has definitely worked for us! Check back next week for another sneak peak.
Check out these women's blogs as well in the link up:
Shay
Jenna
Mandy
Lindsey
Megan
Jenn
1 comment:
Great post. God is always faithful to pull us through!
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