Lent

Ok first off I am not Catholic- second I have never given anything up for lent, but I do really value the true meaning (from what I have gathered) of what lent means. Giving something up so that there is more time to spend with God. I think it's not supposed to be so much about losing something and thinking about it all the time but giving up something that is pretty important and see how God works through you not doing it for forty days. With that said Kjell and I are giving up something for lent. I had the idea today and I have been praying about it and since I was woken up by fear and worry at 5:15 I have had a lot of time to pray and think about this. We just changed the loan on our house to get it paid off in six years rather than seven (which means we have to pay more per month but we will be knocking a year off of the loan) we need a new van and since Kjell and I are both going to Sweden we need over 4,000 dollars and he sent his support letter out before we knew I was going! So yeah so yeah I'm worrying about the 70K I do not have.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like to spend money. I'm not the fun one at the party you are hosting who spends a whopping amount of money. I dread the thought of girl scouts coming to my house. I only shop when there are sales and I still wear most of the clothes my mom bought me in highschool. Most (basically all) of my kids' clothes are handmedowns, or gifts from either my mom who is the queen of store sales or Kjell's mom who is the queen of the garage sales.

With that said I am planning on a 40 spending freeze. We have done spending freezes in our family before. We usually do it January because we just came through Christmas and we don't have any family birthdays until mine in April. But our freeze goes something like this. "oh we can get General Mills cereal for 1.50 a box that is SUCH a good deal." 20 bucks later we just ended our spending freeze but stocked up on some items we always use in our house. Nope this time it is all hard core. The credit cards will cover GAS only. Which there will be need since Kjell drives over 40 miles every day. I will probably end up throwing most of the sale ads away so I am not even tempted. I will give us 25 bucks cash each week because there will be some groceries we will need that won't last that long (yogurt) Some people may wonder how we can do this. I do want to say that we do qualify for WIC so we will be having those groceries to get us through the month (milk, eggs, cheese, cereal beans) without this we would probably need more for groceries. However that being said minus the milk we could probably make it without because of all my stockpiles from good deals. Plus we have about 30 gift cards that would like to be used so if we need to we can use them.

So that is it. We will still be paying all of our normal bills plus tithing it's not like there will be no money leaving our account. We will still be doing the usual things, but there will be NO extra spending. How do I tie this money break in with getting closer to God. 1) I will have to trust Him more and I won't be as focused on stuff. 2) I want to be a good steward of HIS money- and I hate having debt. If we know someone in need I want to be able to help them however I can but we can't since we have a loan. I know most people would disagree with me but I HATE having a house loan even if it's a "good loan" anytime I owe someone else money I can not see that as a good thing even though my mortgage company is the best.

So in honor of this I am going to do a giveaway. I have three coupons for a free bottle of Purex all you have to do is leave a comment on my wall saying what you are giving up for lent. If the answer is nothing reply with the word "nothing" Sound good? hope you guys remember what the meaning of this season is. Can you imagine being back in Jesus's time and getting to spend these next 40 days with him. WOW. Easter is the most important holiday we have because if Jesus never rose from the dead- it was just a good story.